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LIFE OF JESUS 

BY 
ERNEST RENAN 




NEW YORK 
HOWARD WILFORD BELL 

1904 



Copyright 1904 
by Howard Wilford Bell 



LIBRARY of Ci - 
Two Copies Received 

NOV 2 19U4 
lopyrisnt tfltry 

CLA$6 CL XXc, No; 




1-304 



The Trow Press New York 



LIFE OF JESUS 

CHAPTER I i 

The Place of Jesus in the Worlds History 

The principal event in the history of the world is the 
revolution by which the noblest portions of humanity have 
forsaken the ancient religions, which are classed together 
under the vague name of Paganism, for a religion founded 
on the Divine Unity, the Trinity, and the Incarnation of 
the Son of God. Nearly a thousand years were required 
to achieve this conversion. The new religion itself took 
at least three hundred years in its formation. But the 
origin of the revolution in question is a historical event 
which happened in the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius. 
At that time there lived /a man of supreme personality, who, 
by his bold originality, and by the love which he was able 
to inspire, became the object, and settled the direction, of 
the future faith of mankind.,, 

As soon as man grew distinct from the animal he became 
religious — that is to say, he saw in nature something 
beyond reality, and, for himself, something beyond death. 
This feeling, during some thousands of years, went through 
the strangest vicissitudes. In many races it did not pass 
beyond belief in sorcerers, under the gross form in which 
it is still to be found in certain parts of Oceania. Among 
some peoples religious feeling degenerated into the shame- 
ful scenes of butchery which characterised the ancient re- 
ligion of Mexico. Other nations, especially in Africa, have 
never emerged from pure fetichism — that is, the adoration 
5 



LIFE OF JESUS 

of a material object to which supernatural powers are 
attributed. Like the instinct of love, which at times raises 
the most vulgar man above himself, yet occasionally be- 
comes perverted and ferocious, so this divine religious 
faculty during long periods may seem to be nothing but 
a cancer which must be extirpated from the human race, a 
cause of errors and crimes which the wise should endeavor 
to suppress. 

The brilliant civilisations which were developed in a 
very remote antiquity in China, in Babylonia, and in Egypt, 
effected a certain progress in religion. China soon reached 
a kind of mediocre good sense, which prevented great 
extravagances. She knew neither the advantages nor the 
abuses of the religious spirit. At all events, she had not 
in this matter any influence in directing the great current of 
humanity. The religions of Babylonia and Syria were never 
wholly liberated from a substratum of strange sensuality; 
these religions remained, until their extinction in the fourth 
and fifth centuries of our era, schools of immorality, in 
which at times glimpses of the divine world were gained by 
a sort of poetic intuition. Egypt, despite an apparent 
fetichism, had, at a very early date, metaphysical dogmas 
and a lofty symbolism. But, doubtless, these interpreta- 
tions of a refined theology were not primitive. Man has 
never, when in possession of a clearly conceived idea, 
amused himself by clothing it in symbols: most often it is 
after long reflection that, forced by the impossibility felt by 
the human mind of resigning itself to the absurd, we seek 
ideas under ancient mystic images the meaning of which 
has been lost. Moreover, it is not from Egypt that the faith 
of mankind has emerged. The elements in the Christian 
religion which, passing through a thousand transforma- 
tions, have come from Egypt and Syria, are external forms 
of little consequence, or dross which even the most purified 
6 



JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

forms of worship always retain. The great defect of the 
religions of which we speak was their essentially supersti- 
tious character. They only cast into the world millions of 
amulets and charms. No great moral thought could pro- 
ceed from races oppressed by secular despotism, and ac- 
customed to institutions which precluded almost all exer- 
cise of individual liberty. 

The poetry of the soul, faith, liberty, rectitude and devo- 
tion, made their appearance in the world with the two great 
races which, in one sense, have made humanity what it is — 
the Indo-European and the Semitic races. The first relig- 
ious intuitions of the Indo-European race were essentially 
naturalistic. But it was a profound and moral naturalism, 
a loving union of man with nature, a sweet poetry, full of 
feeling for the infinite — the principle, in short, of all that 
the Teutonic and Celtic genius, of all that a Shakespeare 
and a Goethe were in later days to express. It was neither 
religion nor ethical philosophy — it was compounded of 
melancholy, of tenderness, of imagination, above all else, of 
earnestness, the essential condition of morality and relig- 
ion. But the faith of mankind could not have proceeded 
thence, since these ancient forms of worship had great diffi- 
culty in detaching themselves from polytheism, and did 
not attain to any very clear confession of belief. Brahmin- 
ism has only survived to the present day by reason of the 
extraordinary faculty of conservation which India seems 
to possess. Buddhism failed in all its approaches towards 
the West. Druidism remained an exclusively national form 
of worship, without universal bearing. The Greek attempts 
at reform — Orpheism, the Mysteries — did not suffice to give 
solid nurture to the soul. Persia alone succeeded in making 
a religion that was dogmatic, almost monotheistic, and skil- 
fully organised; but it is quite possible that this organisa- 
tion itself was but an imitation, or borrowed. At all events, 

7 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Persia has not converted the world ; she herself, on the con- 
trary, was converted when she saw the banner of divine 
unity as proclaimed by Islam appear on her frontiers. 

It is the Semitic race 1 which has the glory of having 
created the religion of mankind. Far beyond the confines 
of history, resting in his tent free from the taint of a cor- 
rupted world, the Bedouin patriarch was preparing the 
faith of the whole world. A strong antipathy to the volup- 
tuous worships of Syria, a grand simplicity of ritual, a 
complete absence of temples, and the idol reduced to insig- 
nificant theraphim, constituted his superiority. Amongst 
all the tribes of the nomadic Semites, that of the Beni-Israel 
was already marked out for immense destinies. Ancient 
relations with Egypt, whence resulted some elements the 
extent of which it is difficult to estimate, did but augment 
their repulsion to idolatry. A " Law " or Thora, written at 
a very early date on tables of stone, which they attributed 
to their great liberator Moses, had already become the code 
of monotheism, and contained, as compared with the institu- 
tions of Egypt and Chaldea, powerful germs of social 
equality and morality. A portable ark, surmounted by a 
sphinx 2 and having staples on each side through which 
bearing poles were passed, constituted all their religious 
apparatus; within it were deposited the sacred objects of 
the nation, its relics, its memorials, and lastly the " book," 
the journal of the tribe, always open, but to which additions 

1 1 remind the reader that this word simply designates here the people 
who speak or have spoken one of the languages called Semitic. Such 
a designation is entirely defective; but it is one of those terms, like 
"Gothic architecture," "Arabic numerals," which we must preserve 
to be understood, even after we have demonstrated the errors they 
imply. 

2 Compare Lepsius, Denkmdler aus Mgypten und Mthiopien, 8, pi. 245; 
De Rouge, fitude sur une stele egypt. appartenant a la Bibliotheque 
imperiale (Paris, 1888); De Vogue, Le Temple de Jerusalem, p. 38; 
Guigniaut, Relig. de Vantiquite t pi. No. 173. 

8 



JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

were made with great discretion. The family charged with 
the duty of bearing the ark and watching over the portable 
archives, being near the book and having control over it, 
very soon became of importance. 

The institution which was to decide the future did not 
come, however, from this source. The Hebrew priest did 
not differ greatly from the other priests of antiquity. The 
characteristic which essentially distinguishes Israel among 
theocratic peoples is, that her priesthood has always been 
subordinated to individual inspiration. Besides its priests, 
each nomadic tribe had its nabi or prophet, a kind of living 
oracle who was consulted for the solution of obscure ques- 
tions supposed to require a high degree of clairvoyance. 
The nabis of Israel, organised in groups or schools, had 
great power. As defenders of the ancient democratic 
spirit, enemies of the rich, opponents of all political organ- 
isation, and of whatsoever might draw Israel into the paths 
of other nations, they were the true instruments of the 
religious pre-eminence of the Jewish people. At a very 
early date they expressed unlimited hopes, and when the 
people, in part the victims of their impolitic counsels, had 
been crushed by the Assyrian power, they proclaimed that 
a limitless kingdom was reserved for Judah, that one day 
Jerusalem would be the capital of the whole world, and 
that the entire human race would become Jews. Jerusalem 
with its temple appeared to them as a city set on the summit 
of a mountain, towards which all peoples should turn, as 
to an oracle whence the universal law should be proclaimed, 
as to the centre of an ideal kingdom, in which the human 
race, led into peace by Israel, should find once more the 
joys of paradise. 3 

3 Isaiah 2: 1-4; especially 11, 12, 60-66. Micah 4: 1-5. It is to be 
noted that the second part of Isaiah, beginning with chapter 40, is not 
by the Isaiah of Hezekiah's time. 

9 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Strange new utterances already began to make them- 
selves heard, tending to exalt martyrdom and celebrate the 
power of the " man of sorrows." Respecting one of those 
sublime sufferers, who, like Jeremiah, stained the streets of 
Jerusalem with their blood, one of the inspired wrote a song 
upon the sufferings and triumph of the " servant of God," 
in which all the prophetic force of the genius of Israel 
seemed concentrated. " For he grew up before him as a 
tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: he hath 
no form or comeliness. . . . He was despised, and we 
esteemed him not. Surely he hath borne our griefs, and 
carried our sorrows ; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten 
of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our trans- 
gressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastise- 
ment of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we 
are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have 
turned every one to his own way; and the Lord hath laid 
on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet he 
humbled himself and opened not his mouth: as a lamb that 
is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers 
is dumb; yea, he opened not his mouth. . . . And they 
made his grave with the wicked. . . . When thou shalt 
make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he 
shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall 
prosper in his hand" (Isaiah 53: 2-10). 

Important modifications were at the same time made in 
the Thora. New texts purporting to represent the true law 
of Moses, such as Deuteronomy, were produced, and in 
reality inaugurated a very different spirit from that of the 
old nomads. Great fanaticism was the dominant feature of 
this spirit. Furious believers unceasingly instigated vio- 
lence against everything swerving from the worship of 
Jehovah, and succeeded in establishing a code of blood, in 
which death was the penalty for religious offences. Piety 
10 



JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

almost always brings singular contradictions of vehemence 
and mildness. This zeal, unknown to the coarser simplicity 
of the time of the Judges, inspired tones of moving elo- 
quence and tender unction, such as, till then, the world had 
never heard. A strong inclination for social questions 
already made itself felt; Utopias, dreams of a perfect 
society, took their place in the code. The Pentateuch, a 
medley of patriarchal morality and ardent devotion, prim- 
itive intuitions and pious subtleties, like those that filled the 
souls of Hezekiah, of Josiah, and of Jeremiah, was thus 
consolidated in the form in which we now see it, and for 
ages became the absolute law of the national spirit. 

This great book once created, the history of the Jewish 
people unfolded itself with irresistible force. The great 
empires which succeeded each other in Western Asia, by 
annihilating all its hopes of a terrestrial kingdom, cast it 
back on religious dreams, which it cherished with a kind of 
sombre passion. Caring but little for the national dynasty 
or political independence, it accepted all governments which 
left it free to practise its worship and follow its usages. 
Israel was henceforward to have no other guidance than 
that of its religious enthusiasts, no other enemies than those 
of the Divine unity, no other fatherland than its Law. 

And this Law, it must be noted, was entirely social and 
moral. It was the work of men permeated with a lofty 
ideal of the present life, and with the belief that they had 
found the best means of realising it. The conviction of all 
was that the Thora, properly observed, could not fail to give 
perfect felicity. This Thora has nothing in common with 
the Greek or Roman " Laws," which, dealing with hardly 
anything but abstract right, enter little into questions of 
private happiness and morality. We feel beforehand that 
the results which will follow the Jewish law will be of a 
social and not a political order, that the work at which this 
11 



LIFE OF JESUS 

people labours is a kingdom of God, not a civil common- 
wealth; a universal institution, not a nationality or a 
country. 

Despite numerous failures, Israel admirably sustained 
this vocation. A series of pious men, Ezra, Nehemiah, 
Onias, the Maccabees, consumed with zeal for the Law, 
succeeded each other in defence of ancient institutions. The 
idea that Israel was a holy people, a tribe chosen by God 
and bound to him by covenant, took deeper and firmer root. 
An immense expectation filled their souls. The whole of 
Indo-European antiquity had placed paradise in the begin- 
ning of things; all its poets had wept a golden age that 
had passed away. Israel placed the age of gold in the 
future. The Psalms, the eternal poesy of religious souls, 
blossomed from this exalted piety, with their divine and 
melancholy harmonies. Israel became truly and specially 
the people of God, whilst around about her the pagan relig- 
ions decayed more and more, in Persia and Babylonia to an 
official charlatanism, in Egypt and Syria to gross idolatry, 
and in the Greek and Roman world to mere parade. What 
the Christian martyrs effected in the first centuries of our 
era, what the victims of persecuting orthodoxy have effected 
in the very bosom of Christianity up to our own time, the 
Jews effected during the two centuries preceding the Chris- 
tian era. They were a living protest against superstition 
and religious materialism. An extraordinary movement of 
ideas, leading up to the most antagonistic results, made 
them, at this epoch, the most striking and original people in 
the world. Their dispersion along all the Mediterranean 
coast, and the use of the Greek language, which they 
adopted when out of Palestine, prepared the way for a 
propagandism, of which ancient societies, divided as they 
were into small nationalities, had till then offered no 
example. 

12 



JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

Down to the time of the Maccabees, Judaism, in spite of 
its persistence in announcing that one day it would be the 
religion of the human race, had had the characteristic of all 
the other religions of antiquity; it was a family and tribal 
religion. The Israelite thought, indeed, that his worship 
was the best, and spoke with contempt of strange gods ; but 
he also believed that the religion of the true God was made 
for himself alone. Only when a man entered into the Jew- 
ish family did he embrace the worship of Jehovah. No 
Israelite dreamed of converting a stranger to a worship 
which was the patrimony of the sons of Abraham. The 
development of the pietistic spirit, after Ezra and Nehe- 
miah, led to a much firmer and more logical conception. 
Judaism became the true religion in an absolute sense; to 
all who wished, the right of entering it was given (Esther 
9: 27), and it soon became a work of piety to bring into it 
the greatest number possible.* No doubt the generous feel- 
ing which raised John the Baptist, Jesus, and St. Paul 
above petty ideas of race, was not yet existent; for, by a 
strange contradiction, these converts, or proselytes, were 
little respected and were treated with disdain. 5 But the idea 
of a sovereign religion, the idea that there is in the world 
something higher than country, than blood, than laws — the 
idea that makes apostles and martyrs — was founded. Pro- 
found pity for pagans, however brilliant their worldly for- 
tune might be, was henceforth the feeling of every Jew. 6 
By a cycle of legends destined to furnish models of inflex- 

4 Matt. 23: 15. Josephus, Life, 23; Wars, 2, 17: 10; 7, 3: 3; Antiq. 
22, 2: 4. Horace, Sat. 1, 4: 143. Juvenal, Sat. 14: 96 et seq. Tacitus, 
Ann. 2: 85; Hist. 5: 5. Dion Cassius 37: 17. (Slaves were often 
emancipated on condition of remaining Jews. Levy (of Breslau), 
Epigr. Beitrage zur Gesch. der Jvden, 229 et seq.) 

5 Mishna, Schebiit, 10: 9. Babyl. Talmud, Niddah, 13 b; Jebamoth, 
47 b; Kidduschin, 70 6. Midrash, JalJcut Ruth, 163 d. 

6 Apocr. epistle of Baruch, in Fabricius, Cod. pseud. V. T., 2: 147 
et seq., and in Ceriani, Monum. sacra et prof ana, 1, 2: 96 et seq. 

13 



LIFE OF JESUS 

ible firmness, such as the histories of Daniel and his com- 
panions, the mother of the Maccabees and her seven sons, 7 
the romance of the racecourse of Alexandria, 8 the guides 
of the people sought above all to inculcate the idea that 
virtue consists in fanatical attachment to fixed religious 
institutions. 

The persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes made this idea 
become a passion, almost a frenzy. It was something very 
analogous to what happened in the reign of Nero, two 
hundred and thirty years later. Rage and despair cast 
believers into the world of visions and dreams. The first 
apocalypse, the Book of Daniel, appeared. It was like a 
revival of prophecy, but under a very different form from 
that of the ancient prophecies, and taking a much wider 
view of the destinies of the world. The Book of Daniel 
gave, in a manner, final expression to the messianic hopes. 
The Messiah was no longer a king, after the manner of 
David and Solomon, a theocratic and Mosaic Cyrus ; he was 
a "Son of man" appearing in the clouds (7: 13, 14) — a 
supernatural being, invested with human form, who was to 
rule the world and preside over the golden age. Perhaps 
the Sosiosh of Persia, the great prophet who was to come 
charged with preparing for the reign of Ormuzd, lent some 
features to this new ideal. 9 The unknown author of the 
Book of Daniel had, in any case, a decisive influence on the 
religious crisis which was about to transform the world. 
He created the mis e- en- scene and the technical terms of 
the new messianic ideal; and we might apply to him what 

7 2 Mace. 7 and the De Maccabceis (ascribed to Josephus). Compare 
Hebrews, 11:33-38. 

8 3 Maccabees (apocryphal) ; Rufinus, Supplem. and Josephus, Contra 
Apionem, 2: 5. 

9 Vendidad, 19: 18, 19; Minokhired, a passage published in the Zeitschr. 
der deutsch. morgenland. GeseUschaft, 1: 263; Boundehesch, 31. The 
lack of accurate chronology for the Zend and Pehlevi texts leaves much 
that is obscure upon these relations between Persian and Jewish beliefs. 

14 



JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

Jesus said of John the Baptist : " Before him, the prophets ; 
after him, the kingdom of God." A few years later the 
same ideas came to light again, under the name of the 
patriarch Enoch. Essenism, which seems to have had direct 
relations with the apocalyptic school, had its birth about 
the same time, 10 and gave as it were a foretaste of the great 
system of discipline which was soon to be constituted for the 
human race. 

It need not, however, be supposed that this profoundly 
religious and soul-stirring movement had special dogmas 
for its primary impulse, as was the case in all the contro- 
versies which have broken forth in the bosom of Christian- 
ity. The Jew of this epoch was as little theological as pos- 
sible. He did not speculate upon the essence of the Deity ; 
beliefs about angels, about the destinies of man, about the 
divine hypostases, the first germs of which might already 
be perceived, were free beliefs — meditations, to which each 
one surrendered himself according to the turn of his mind, 
but of which a great many people had never heard. Those 
indeed were the most orthodox who stood aloof from all 
such personal imaginations and adhered to the simplicity 
of the Mosaic system. No dogmatic power analogous to 
that which orthodox Christianity has conferred on the 
Church then existed. It was only at the beginning of the 
third century, when Christianity had fallen into the hands 
of argumentative races, mad with dialectic and metaphysics, 
that the fever for definitions commenced which makes the 
history of the Church the history of one immense con- 
troversy. There were disputes also among the Jews — 
excited schools of thought brought antagonistic solutions 
to almost all questions under discussion; but in these 
conflicts, the principal details of which have been preserved 

10 The first distinct mention of the Essenes is found about 106 B.C. 
in Josephus, Antiquities 13, 5: 9; Wars, 1, 3: 5. 

15 



LIFE OF JESUS 

in the Talmud, there is not a single word of speculative 
theology. To observe and maintain the Law, because the 
Law was just, and because, when faithfully observed, it 
gave happiness — such was Judaism in entirety. No credo, 
no theoretical symbol. One of the disciples of the boldest 
Arabic philosophy, Moses Maimonides, was able to become 
the oracle of the synagogue because he was well versed in 
canonical law. 

The reigns of the last Asmoneans, and that of Herod, 
saw the excitement wax still greater. They were filled with 
an uninterrupted succession of religious movements. In 
the same measure that political power became secularised 
and passed into the hands of sceptics, the Jewish people 
lived less and less for the earth, and became more and 
more absorbed in the strange travail which was labouring 
within it. The world at large, distracted by other spec- 
tacles, had no knowledge of what was taking place in this 
forgotten corner of the East. Minds abreast of their age 
were, however, better informed. The tender and clear- 
sighted Virgil seems to respond, as by a secret echo, to 
the second Isaiah; the birth of a child casts him into 
dreams of a universal new birth. 11 Such dreams were of 
common occurrence, and formed a kind of literature which 
was designated Sibylline. The quite recent establishment 
of the Empire exalted men's imaginations; the great era of 
peace on which the world was entering, and that impression 
of melancholy sensibility which the mind experiences after 
long periods of revolution, gave birth on all sides to illimit- 
able hopes. 

In Judaea expectation was at its height. Holy persons — 

"Eclogue 4. The "Cumaean Song" (5: 4) was a sort of Sibylline 
apocalypse, stamped with the philosophy of history familiar to the East. 
See Servius on this verse, and the Carmina Sibyuina, 3: 97-817. (Cf. 
Tac. Hist. 5: 13; Suet. Vesp. 4; Josephus, Wars, 6, 5: 4.) 

16 






JESUS IN WORLD'S HISTORY 

among whom legend relates of an aged Simeon, who was 
said to have held Jesus in his arms, and of Anna, daughter 
of Phanuel, who was regarded as a prophetess — passed 
their lives about the temple, fasting, and praying that it 
might please God not to take them from the world before 
they had beheld the fulfilment of the hopes of Israel. They 
felt a powerful presentiment; they were sensible of the 
approach of something unknown. 

This confused medley of clear views and dreams, this 
alternation of deceptions and hopes, these aspirations, un- 
ceasingly driven back by odious reality, found at length 
their interpretation in the peerless man to whom the uni- 
versal conscience has decreed the title of Son of God, and 
that with justice, since he gave religion an impetus greater 
than that which any other man has been capable of giving 
— an impetus with which, in all probability, no farther 
advance will be comparable. 



17 



CHAPTER II 

The Childhood and Youth of Jesus 

Jesus was born at Nazareth/ 2 a small town in Galilee, 
which before his time was not known to fame. 13 All his 
life he was called by the name of " the Nazarene," 14 and 
it is only by a somewhat far-fetched and contradictory 
hypothesis that, in the legends respecting him, he is de- 
scribed as having been born at Bethlehem. 15 We shall see 

1J Matt. 13: 54-57; Mark 6:1-4; John 1: 45-46. 

18 It is not mentioned in the Old Testament, Josephus, or the Talmud; 
but the name occurs in the liturgy of Kalir, for the ninth of Ab. 

14 Matt. 26: 71. Mark 1: 24; 14: 67. Luke 18: 37; 24: 19. John 
19: 19. Acts 2: 22; 3: 6; 10: 38 (cf. John 7: 41, 42. Acts 4: 10; 6: 14; 
22: 8; 26: 9). Hence the name "Nazarenes" (Acts 24: 5), long given 
to the Christians by the Jews, and still denoting them in all Mussulman 
countries. 

18 A circumstance invented to correspond with Micah 5:2. The 
"taxing" (enrolment) made by Cyrenius (Quirinius), with which the 
journey to Bethlehem is connected, was at least ten years later than 
the date of Jesus' birth, according to Matthew and Luke. In fact, 
these two evangelists place his birth during the reign of Herod (Matt. 2: 
1, 19, 22; Luke 1:5). Now, the census of Quirinius did not take place 
till after the deposal of Archelaus, that is, ten years after Herod's death, 
and in the thirty-seventh after the battle of Actium (Josephus, Antiquities, 
17, 13: 5; 18, 1: 1; 2: 1). The inscription by which it was formerly 
thought to be made out that Quirinius made two enrolments is acknowl- 
edged to be spurious (see Orelli, Inscr. Lot. No. 623, with Henzen's 
supplement; Borghesi, Fasti consular es, unedited, under the year 742). 
Quirinius may have been twice legatus of Syria; but the registration 
took place only in his second term (Mommsen Res gesta divi Augusti, 
Berlin, 1865, p. 11 et seq.). The "taxing," at all events, would have 
applied to the regions made into a Roman province, not to kingdoms 
and tetrarchies, above all in the lifetime of Herod the Great. The 
texts by which it is sought to prove that some of the operations of statistics 
and registry ordered by Augustus extended to the dominion of the 
Herods, either imply nothing of the sort, or are the work of Christian 
writers who have taken this item from Luke's Gospel. What further 
clearly proves that the journey of the family of Joseph to Bethlehem 

18 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

later the motive for this hypothesis, and how it was the 
necessary consequence of the Messianic character attributed 
to Jesus. 16 The precise date of his birth is unknown. It 
took place in the reign of Augustus, about the Roman year 
750, 17 probably some years before the year 1 of the era 
which all civilised peoples date from the day of his birth. 18 

The name of Jesus, which was given him, is Joshua in 
an altered form. It was a very common name; but after- 
wards people naturally sought for mystical interpretations 
and an allusion to his character of Saviour in it. 19 It may 
be that Jesus, like all mystics, exalted himself in this re- 
spect. More than one great vocation in history has been 
discovered thus by a name given to a child without pre- 
meditation. Ardent natures never resign themselves to 
seeing aught of chance in what concerns them. For them, 

is in no way historical, is its assigned motive. Jesus was not of the 
family of David (see chapter 15); and even if he were, it could not be 
supposed that his parents would be compelled, for a mere official for- 
mality, to go and register themselves in a place which their ancestors 
had left a thousand years before. In forcing on them such an obliga- 
tion, the Roman authority would have fostered pretensions very threaten- 
ing to itself. 

18 Matt. 2: 1-6; Luke 2: 1-5. That this account is lacking in Mark, 
with the two parallel passages (Matt. 13: 54; Mark 6: 1) in which Naz- 
areth appears as the "own country" of Jesus, proves that no such legend 
belonged to the earliest text that gave the outline of the narrative as 
now found in Matthew and Mark. In view of the oft-repeated objections, 
there were prefixed to Matthew's Gospel certain qualified statements 
not so flagrantly contradicting the rest of the story as to compel the altera- 
tion of passages composed from cmite another point of view. Luke, on 
the contrary (4: 16), writing with deliberation, has for consistency's 
sake softened his expression. The fourth evangelist knows nothing of 
the journey to Bethlehem: for him, Jesus is simply "of Nazareth" 
(John 1: 46), or "from Galilee" (ibid. 7: 41), on two occasions when it 
would have been of the highest value to recall his birth at Bethlehem. 

17 Matt. 2: 1, 19, 22; Luke 1 : 5. Herod died early in the year of Rome 
750, corresponding with B.C. 4. 

18 The calculation serving as the basis of the vulgar era (it is well 
known) was made by Dionysius Exiguus in the sixth century. It implies 
certain data purely hypothetical. 

18 Matt. 1: 21; Luke 1:31. 

19 



LIFE OF JESUS 

all has been regulated by God; and they perceive a sign 
of the supreme will in the most insignificant circumstances. 

The population of Galilee was very much mixed in race, 
as indeed the name of the country indicated. 20 In the pop- 
ulation of the province, in the time of Jesus, there were 
many who were not Jews, — Phoenicians, Syrians, Arabs, 
and even Greeks. 21 Conversions to Judaism were by no 
means rare in mixed countries of this kind. It is therefore 
impossible to discuss here any question of race, and en- 
deavour to ascertain what blood flowed in the veins of him 
who has contributed most to efface distinctions of blood 
amongst mankind. 

Jesus came from the ranks of the common folk. 22 His 
father Joseph and his mother Mary were people in humble 
circumstances, artisans living by their handiwork 23 in that 
state, so common in the East, which is neither ease nor 
poverty. The extreme simplicity of life in such countries, 
by dispensing with the need of comfort, renders the privi- 
leges of the man of wealth almost useless, and makes every 
one voluntarily poor. On the other hand, the total lack of 
appreciation of art, and all that contributes to the beauty 
of material life, gives a bare appearance to the house of 
one who otherwise wants for nothing. Apart from some- 
thing sordid and repulsive which Islamism bears every- 
where with it, the town of Nazareth, in the time of Jesus, 
did not differ greatly perhaps from what it is to-day. 24 We 

,0 Gelil haggoyim, "circle of the Gentiles." 

11 Strabo, 16: 2, 35. Josephus, Life, 12. 

"The source of the genealogies designed to trace his descent from 
David will be explained below (chapter 15). The Ebionites consistently 
suppressed these genealogies (Epipnanius, Adv. Hcer. 30: 14). 

23 Matt. 13: 55; Mark 6:3; John 6: 42. 

24 The rude aspect of the ruins that cover Palestine proves that the 
towns not rebuilt after the Roman manner were very ill built. The form 
of Syrian houses is so simple, and so imperatively required by the climate, 
that it never can have much changed. 

20 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

see the streets, where he played when a child, in the stony- 
paths or little lanes which separate the dwellings from each 
other. No doubt the house of Joseph much resembled those 
poor domiciles, lighted only by the doorway, serving at once 
as workshop, kitchen, and bedroom, and having for furni- 
ture a mat, some cushions on the ground, one or two clay 
pots, and a painted chest. 

The family, whether it was the issue of one or several 
marriages, was somewhat large. Jesus had brothers and 
sisters 25 who seem to have been younger than he. 26 They 
all remained obscure, for it appears that the four men who 
were called his brothers, and among whom one at least, 
James, became of great importance in the early years of 
the development of Christianity, were his cousins-german. 
Mary, in fact, had a sister, also named Mary, 27 who mar- 
ried a certain Alpheus or Cleophas (these names appear to 
designate the same person) 28 and was the mother of several 
sons who were of considerable importance among the first 
disciples of Jesus. These cousins-german, who adhered to 
the young Master while his own brothers opposed him 

"Matt. 1: 25 (common reading); 12: 46-50; 13:55, 56. Mark 3: 
31-35; 6: 3. Luke 2: 7; 8: 19-21. John 2: 12; 7: 3, 5, 10. Acts 1:14. 
Hegesippus (Euseb. H. E. 3: 20). The assertion that ah ("brother") 
has a wider sense in Hebrew than with us is wholly false; its meaning is 
identically the same. Abuse and metaphoric or mistaken use prove 
nothing. When a preacher calls his hearers "my brethren," do we infer 
that the word "brother" has no well-defined meaning ? In the passages 
just cited, it is clear that the word has no figurative sense. Note espe- 
cially Matt. 12: 46-50, which equally forbids the loose rendering "cousin." 

28 Matt. 1: 25; Luke 2: 7. There are critical doubts on the text in 
Matthew, but not on that in Luke. 

27 It is certainly a singular circumstance that these two sisters have the 
same name. There is probably some inaccuracy, arising from the habit 
of almost indiscriminately calling Galilean women "Mary." 

28 They are not etymologically the same. 'A\<pcuos is a transcription of 
the Syro-Chaldaic name Halphai; K\(oiras, or k\€6ttos, is a shortened form 
of K\c6iraTpos. But one may have been artificially substituted for the 
other, — as "Joseph" is made Hegesippus, "Eliakim" Alcimus, etc. 

21 



LIFE OF JESUS 

(John 7: 5), took the title of "brothers of the Lord." 29 
The real brothers of Jesus, like their mother, became of 
note only after his death. Even then their reputation does 
not appear to have equalled that of their cousins, whose 
conversion had been more spontaneous, and whose charac- 
ters seem to have had more originality. Their names were 
so little known that, when the evangelist puts in the mouth 
of the men of Nazareth the enumeration of the brothers 
according to natural relationship, the names of the sons of 
Cleophas are the first to present themselves to him. 

The sisters of Jesus were married at Nazareth, and there 
he spent the early years of his youth. Nazareth was a small 
town, situated in a hollow opening broadly at the summit 
of the group of mountains which shuts in the plain of 
Esdraelon on the north. The population is now from three 
to four thousand, and can never have varied much. 30 The 
cold is sharp in winter, and the climate very healthy. The 
town, like all the small Jewish towns at that period, was a 
group of huts shabbily built, and must have presented that 

" In fact, the four named (Matt. 13: 55; Mark 6: 3) as "brothers" of 
Jesus — James, Joses (or Joseph), Simon, and Judas — are all, or nearly 
all, found as sons of Mary and Cleophas (Matt. 27: 56; Mark 15: 40, 
16: 1; Luke 24: 10; Gal. 1: 19; Jas. 1:1; Jude 1; Euseb. Chron. a.u.c. 
810; H. E. 3: 11, 22, 32, after Hegesippus; Const. Apost. 7: 46). The 
suggestion here proposed is the only relief to the great difficulty of sup- 
posing two sisters having each three or four sons with the same names; 
and of admitting that James and Simon, the first two bishops of Jerusa- 
lem, called "brothers of the Lord," were real brothers of Jesus, who 
began by opposing him, but were afterwards converted. The evangelist, 
hearing the sons of Cleophas called "brothers of the Lord," wrote their 
names by mistake in the passage (Matt. 13: 55 =Mark 6: 3) instead of 
the unknown names of the real brothers. Thus we see how those called 
"brothers of the Lord" — James, for example — are so different in char- 
acter from the real brothers of Jesus as indicated in John 7: 3-5. The 
expression "the Lord's brothers" evidently designated, in the primitive 
church, a sort of rank similar to the apostolic (see especially Gal. 1: 19; 
1 Cor. 9: 5). 

30 According to Josephus (Wars, 3, 3: 2) the smallest Galilean town 
had at least 15,000 inhabitants. This is doubtless exaggeration. 

22 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

forbidding and poverty-stricken aspect which is still char- 
acteristic of villages in the East. The houses, it would 
seem, did not differ much from those cubes of stone, elegant 
neither without nor within, which at the present day cover 
the richest parts of Lebanon, and which, buried as they are 
amid vines and fig-trees, are, in some respects, very pleas- 
ing. The surroundings moreover are charming; and no 
place in the world could be so well adapted for dreams of 
perfect happiness. Even in our time Nazareth is still a 
delightful abode, perhaps the only place in Palestine in 
which the mind feels relieved of the burden which oppresses 
it in that land of unparalleled desolation. The people are 
pleasant and cheerful; the gardens fresh and green. An- 
thony the Martyr, writing at the end of the sixth century, 
draws an enchanting picture of the fertility of the neigh- 
bourhood, which he compares to Paradise. Some valleys on 
the western side amply justify his description. The foun- 
tain, formerly the centre of the life and gaiety of the little 
town, is destroyed; its broken channels now contain only a 
muddy stream. But the beauty of the women who assemble 
there in the evening — that beauty which was remarked even 
in the sixth century, and was regarded as a gift of the 
Virgin Mary — is still preserved in a striking manner. It 
is the Syrian type in all its languid grace. No doubt Mary 
was there almost every day, and, with her j ar on her shoul- 
der, took her place with the rest of her neighbours who 
have remained in oblivion. Anthony the Martyr observes 
that the Jewish women, elsewhere disdainful to Christians, 
were here full of good feeling. Even now religious hatred 
is weaker at Nazareth than in the rest of the country. 

The view from the town is limited; but if we ascend a 
little to the plateau, swept by a perpetual breeze, which 
stands above the highest houses, the landscape is mag- 
nificent. On the west stretch the fine outlines of Carmel, 
23 



LIFE OF JESUS 

terminating in an abrupt spur which seems to run down 
sheer to the sea. Next, one sees the double summit which 
towers above Megiddo; the mountains of the country of 
Shechem, with their holy places of the patriarchal period; 
the hills of Gilboa, the small picturesque group to which is 
attached the graceful or terrible recollections of Shunem 
and of Endor; and Tabor, with its beautiful rounded form, 
which antiquity compared to a bosom. Through a gap 
between the mountains of Shunem and Tabor are visible 
the valley of the Jordan and the high plains of Peraea, 
which form a continuous line from the eastern side. On 
the north, the mountains of Safed, stretching towards the 
sea, conceal St. Jean d'Acre, but leave the Gulf of Khaifa 
in sight. Such was the horizon of Jesus. This enchanted 
circle, cradle of the kingdom of God, was for years his 
world. Indeed, during his whole life he went but little 
beyond the familiar bounds of his childhood. For yonder, 
northwards, one can almost see, on the flank of Hermon, 
Caesarea-Philippi, his farthest point of advance into the 
Gentile world; and to the south the less smiling aspect of 
these Samaritan hills foreshadows the dreariness of Judaea 
beyond, parched as by a burning wind of desolation and 
death. 

If the world, remaining Christian but attaining to a 
better idea of that which constitutes a fitting respect for 
the beginnings of its religion, should ever wish to replace 
by authentic holy places the mean and apocryphal sanc- 
tuaries to which the piety of less enlightened ages was 
attached, it is upon this mountain height of Nazareth that 
it would build its temple anew. There, at the birthplace of 
Christianity, and in the centre of the deeds of its Founder, 
ought the great church to be raised in which all Christians 
should worship. Here, too, on this spot where Joseph the 
carpenter sleeps with thousands of forgotten Nazarenes 
24 



CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 

who never passed beyond the horizon of their valley, the 
philosopher would find a place, better than any in the world 
beside, to contemplate human affairs in their courses, to 
console himself for their incertitude, and to win fresh 
assurance of the divine end which the world pursues 
through innumerable falterings and despite the vanity of 
all things. 



25 



CHAPTER III 

The Education of Jesus 

These natural surroundings, at once smiling and im- 
pressive, formed the whole education of Jesus. No doubt 
he learnt to read and write (John 8:6) according to the 
Eastern method, which consists in putting in the child's 
hands a book, which he repeats in cadence with his little 
comrades, until he knows it by heart. 31 It is doubtful, 
however, if he fully understood the Hebrew writings in 
their original tongue. His biographers make him cite them 
according to translations in the Aramean language; 32 his 
exegetical principles, so far as we can judge of them from 
his disciples, much resembled those then in vogue, which 
represent the spirit of the Targummim and the Mid- 
rashim. 33 

The schoolmaster in small Jewish towns was the hazzan, 
or reader in the synagogues. 34 Jesus frequented but little 
the higher schools of the scribes or soferim. 36 There were 
perhaps none in Nazareth, and he was not possessed of any 
of those titles which, in the eyes of the vulgar, confer the 
privileges of knowledge. Nevertheless, it would be a great 
error to imagine that Jesus was what we should call an 
ignorant man. Amongst us scholastic education draws a 
great distinction, in respect of personal worth, between 
those who have received it and those who have not had the 

81 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi 6. 

" Matt. 27: 46; Mark 15: 34. 

"Jewish translations and commentaries of the Old Testament 

"Mishna, Schabbath, 1: 3. 
"Matt. 13: 54; John 7: 15. 

26 



THE EDUCATION OF JESUS 

opportunity. It was not so in the East, or indeed anywhere 
in the good old times. The state of ignorance in which, 
owing to our isolated and entirely individualistic way of 
living, those amongst us remain who have not passed through 
the schools is unknown in those societies where moral 
culture, and, above all, the general spirit of the age, are 
transmitted by the perpetual contact of man with man. 
The Arab who has never had a teacher is often neverthe- 
less a man of great distinction; for the tent is a kind of 
school always open, where, from the intercourse of well-bred 
men, is produced a great intellectual, even literary, move- 
ment. Refinement of manners and acuteness of intellect 
have, in the East, nothing in common with what we call 
education. It is the men of the schools, on the contrary, 
who are considered as being pedantic, and wanting in 
manners. In a social state such as this, ignorance, which 
with us condemns a man to an inferior position, is the 
condition of great things and of high originality. 

In all probability Jesus did not know Greek. The lan- 
guage was spread but little in Judaea beyond the classes 
who took part in the Government, and the towns inhabited 
by pagans, like Caesarea. 36 The real mother-tongue of Jesus 
was the Syrian dialect mingled with Hebrew, which was 
then spoken in Palestine. 37 Still less is it probable that 

88 Mishna, Schekalim, 3: 2. Jerusalem Talmud, Megilla, halaca 11; 
Sofa, 7:1. Babyl. Talmud, Baba kama, 83 a, Megilla, 8 b et seq. 

37 Matt. 27: 46. Mark 3: 17; 5: 41; 7: 34; 14: 36; 15: 34. The ex- 
pression v irdrpios <pa>vii in the writers of this time, always signifies the 
Semitic dialect spoken in Palestine (2 Mace. 7: 21, 27; 12: 37. Acts 
21: 37, 40; 22: 2; 26: 14. Jos. Antiq. 18, 6: 10; 20, 11: 2; and 
Wars, Prooem. 1; 5, 6: 3 ; 9: 2; 6, 2: 1. C. Apion. l:9;de Mace. 12, 16). 
It will be shown, later on, that some of the documents serving as the 
groundwork of the Synoptic Gospels were written in this Semitic dialect. 
It was the same with several apocryphal writings (4 Mace. 16 ad calcem). 
In short, the Christianity which sprang directly from the Galilean 
movement (Nazarene, Ebionite, etc.), which long subsisted in Bataneea 
and Hauran, employed a Semitic dialect (Euseb. De Situ, etc., s. v. 

27 



LIFE OF JESUS 

he had any acquaintance with Greek culture. Such culture 
was proscribed by the doctors of Palestine, who included in 
the same curse " him who rears swine, and him who teaches 
his son Greek learning." 38 In any case it had not pen- 
etrated in little towns like Nazareth. It is true that, not- 
withstanding the anathema of the doctors, some Jews had 
already embraced Hellenic culture. Apart from the Jewish 
school of Egypt, in which attempts to amalgamate Hellen- 
ism and Judaism had been continued for nearly two hundred 
years, a Jew, Nicholas of Damascus, had become, even at 
this time, one of the most distinguished, one of the best 
informed, and one of the most respected men of his age. 
Josephus was soon to furnish another example of a Jew 
completely Hellenised. But Nicholas was only a Jew in 
blood. Josephus declares himself to have been an excep- 
tion among his contemporaries; and the whole schismatic 
school of Egypt was so far detached from Jerusalem, that 
we do not find the least allusion to it either in the Talmud 
or in Jewish tradition. What is certain is, that Greek was 
very little studied at Jerusalem; Greek studies were re- 
garded as dangerous, and even servile, and at best consid- 
ered as an accomplishment for women. 39 The study of the 
Law was alone accounted liberal and worthy a serious man's 
attention. 40 Questioned as to the time at which it would be 
right to teach children " the wisdom of the Greeks," a 
learned Rabbi answered, " At the time which is neither day 
nor night; since it is written of the Law, Thou shalt study 
it day and night." 41 

X«/3a. Epiph. Adv. hoer. 29: 7, 9; 30: 3. Jerome, In Matt. 12: 13; 
Dial. adv. Pelag. 3: 2). 

88 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 11: 1. Babyl. Talmud, Baba kama, 82 b, 83 a; 
Sota, 49 a, b; Menachoth, 64 b (cf. 2 Mace. 4: 10). 

39 Jerusalem Talmud, Peah. 1:1. 

40 Josephus, Antiq. 20, 11: 2; Origen, Contra Celsum 2: 34. 

41 Jerus, Talmud, Peah, 1:1; Babyl. Talmud, Menachoth, 99 b. 

28 



THE EDUCATION OF JESUS 

Neither directly nor indirectly, then, did any element of 
secular teaching reach Jesus. He was ignorant of all 
beyond Judaism; his mind kept that free innocence which 
an extended and varied culture always weakens. In the 
very bosom of Judaism he remained a stranger to many 
efforts often moving on the same lines as his own. On the 
one hand, the ascetic life of the Essenes or the Thera- 
peutae ; 42 on the other, the fine speculations in religious 
philosophy made by the Jewish school at Alexandria, of 
which Philo, his contemporary, was the ingenious inter- 
preter, were unknown to him. The frequent resemblances 
to be found between him and Philo, those excellent maxims 
about the love of God, charity, rest in God, 43 which seem as 
it were to echo between the Gospel and the writings of the 
illustrious Alexandrian thinker, are derived from the com- 
mon tendencies, inspired by the necessities of the age in all 
lofty minds. 

Happily for him, he was also ignorant of the grotesque 
scholasticism which was taught at Jerusalem, and was soon 
to constitute the Talmud. If some Pharisees had already 
imported it into Galilee, he did not associate with them, and 
when, in later life, he encountered this foolish casuistry, it 
only filled him with disgust. It may well be conjectured, 
however, that the principles of Hillel were not unknown to 
him. Hillel, fifty years before him, had given utterance to 
aphorisms presenting many analogies to his own. By his 
meekly endured poverty, by the sweetness of his character, 
by his opposition to priests and hypocrites, Hillel was the 

42 The Therapeutse of Philo are a branch of the Essenes. The name 
even, seems to be only a Greek translation of the word (E<r<rcuoi, asaya, 
"healers"). See Philo, De Vita contempt. 1; Josephus, Wars, 2, 8: 6; 
Epiphan. Adv. hmr. 29: 4. The Essenes do not once appear in the 
early Christian writings. 

43 See, in particular, Philo's Quis rerum divinarum hares sit, and 
De Philanthropia. 

29 



LIFE OF JESUS 

true master of Jesus, 44 if indeed it be permitted to speak 
of a master in connection with one of such high originality 
as the latter. 

The reading of the books of the Old Testament made 
much more impression upon him. The canon of the holy 
books was composed of two chief parts — the Law, that is to 
say the Pentateuch, and the Prophets, such as we now 
possess them. A vast allegorical exegesis was applied to 
all these books, with the purpose of drawing from them 
something that was not in them, but which answered to the 
aspirations of the age. The Law, which represented not 
the ancient laws of the country, but rather Utopias, the 
factitious laws and pious frauds of the period of the pietistic 
kings, had become, since the nation had ceased to govern 
itself, an inexhaustible theme for subtle interpretations. As 
to the Prophets and the Psalms, the popular belief was that 
almost all the somewhat mysterious traits in these books 
referred to the Messiah; and people sought to find in them 
the type of him who should realise the hopes of the nation. 
Jesus participated in the taste which every one possessed 
for these allegorical interpretations. But the true poetry of 
the Bible, which escaped the puerile exegetists of Jerusa- 
lem, was fully revealed to his great genius. The Law does 
not appear to have had much charm for him: he believed 
that he could do better. But the religious poetry of the 
Psalms was in marvellous accordance with his lyrical soul; 
all his life they were his sustenance and his support. The 
prophets — Isaiah in particular, and his successor in the 
epoch of the captivity — with their brilliant dreams of the 
future, their impetuous eloquence, and their invectives 
mingled with enchanting imagery, were his real masters. 
No doubt, he also read many apocryphal works — that is 

4 i Pirke Aboth, 1 , 2. Jerus Talmud, Pesachim, 6:1. Babyl . Talmud, 
Pesachim, 66 a; Schabbath, 30 b, 31 a; Joma, 35 b. 

30 



THE EDUCATION OF JESUS 

to say somewhat modern writings, the authors of which, to 
give themselves an authority only accorded to very ancient 
scriptures, had sheltered themselves under the names of 
prophets and patriarchs. One of these books especially 
attracted him, — the book of Daniel. 45 This book, written 
by an impassioned Jew of the time of Antiochus Epiphanes, 
and attached by him to the name of an ancient sage, 48 
formed a resume of the spirit of those later times. Its 
author, the true creator of the philosophy of history, was 
the first who dared to see in the general progress of the 
world and the succession of its empires, only a purpose 
subordinate to the destinies of the Jewish people. Early in 
life Jesus was possessed by these high hopes. Perhaps, 
too, he had read the books of Enoch, 47 then held in equal 
reverence with the sacred books, and the other writings of 
the same kind which kept the popular imagination so 
active. The advent of the Messiah, with his glories and 
his terrors — the nations crumbling down to ruin on one 
another, the cataclysm of heaven and earth, — in such ideas 
his imagination found constant sustenance; and, as these 
revolutions were proclaimed to be at hand, and a great 
number of persons endeavoured to prognosticate the time 
when they should come to pass, the supernatural state of 
feeling into which such visions transport us, appeared to 
him from the first as being perfectly natural and simple. 

" Matt. 24 : 15 ; Mark 13 : 14. 

48 The legend of Daniel was already shaped in the seventh century 
B.C. (Ezek. 14: 14, 20; 28: 3). It was afterward supposed that he had 
lived at the time of the Captivity in Babylon. 

47 Jude 6, 14; 2 Pet. 2: 4, 11; Test, of the Twelve Patriarchs (Simeon 5; 
Levi 10, 14, 16; Judah 18; Zeb. 3; Dan. 5; Benj. 9; Naphtali 4); Ep. 
Barn. 4, 16 (cod. Sinait.; see Introd. pp. 41, 42). The Book of Enoch 
still forms part of the Ethiopic Bible. As we know it in the Ethiopic 
version, it is composed of portions of various dates. [See Hist, of Israel^ 
5: 20, n.] Several have a likeness to the discourses of Jesus (cf. chaps. 
96-99 with Luke 6: 24-26). 

31 



LIFE OF JESUS 

That Jesus had no knowledge of the general state of the 
world is evident from every feature of his most authentic 
discourses. To him the earth appeared to be still divided 
into kingdoms warring with one another; he seemed to be 
ignorant of the " Roman peace " and the new state of 
society which was inaugurated in his time. He had no 
precise idea of the Roman power; the name of "Caesar" 
alone reached him. He saw, in course of construction, in 
Galilee or its environs, Tiberias, Julias, Diocaesarea, 
Caesarea, stately works of the Herods who sought, by 
erecting these magnificent buildings, to prove their admira- 
tion for Roman civilisation, and their devotion towards the 
members of the family of Augustus, whose names, by a 
caprice of fate, now serve, grotesquely altered, to designate 
miserable Bedouin hamlets. Probably he also saw Sebaste, 
the work of Herod the Great, a showy city, the ruins of 
which would lead one to believe that it had been brought 
to its site ready made, like a machine which had only to be 
put together and set up. This ostentatious piece of archi- 
tecture which arrived in Judaea by ship-loads, these hun- 
dreds of columns, all of uniform diameter, the ornament of 
some insipid " Rue de Rivoli " — these were what he called 
" the kingdoms of the world and all their glory." But this 
autocratic luxuriousness, this administrative and official art, 
displeased him. What he loved were his Galilean villages, 
confused masses of huts, of nests and holes cut in the rocks, 
of wells, of tombs, of fig-trees, and of olives. He always 
clung close to nature. The courts of kings appeared to him 
as places where people wear fine clothes (Matt. 9:8). The 
charming impossibilities of which his parables are full, 
when he brings kings and the mighty ones of the earth into 
the story, 48 prove that he never conceived of aristocratic 

48 See for example Matt. 22: 2-14. 



THE EDUCATION OF JESUS 

society, save as a young villager who sees the world through 
the prism of his simplicity. 

Still less had Jesus any knowledge of the new idea, 
created by Hellenic science, and fully confirmed by modern 
thought, which is the basis of all philosophy, to wit, the 
exclusion of the supernatural forces, to which the simple 
belief of early times attributed the government of the uni- 
verse. Almost a century before him, Lucretius had admir- 
ably expressed the immutability of the general system of 
nature. The negation of miracle — the idea that everything 
in the world is caused by laws in which the personal inter- 
vention of higher beings has no part — was universally ad- 
mitted in the great schools of all the countries which had 
accepted Greek science. Perhaps even Babylon and Persia 
were not strangers to it. Of this progress Jesus knew 
nothing. Although born at a time when the principles of 
positive science had already been proclaimed, he lived 
entirely in supernatural ideas. Never, perhaps, had the 
Jews been more possessed with the thirst for the marvellous. 
Philo, who dwelt in a great intellectual centre and had re- 
ceived a very thorough education, possessed only a chimeri- 
cal and valueless knowledge of science. 

On this point Jesus differed in no respect from his 
countrymen. He believed in the devil, whom he figured 
as a kind of evil genius (Matt. 6: 13), and he imagined, 
like everybody else, that nervous diseases were caused by 
demons who possessed the patient and agitated him. To 
him the marvellous was not the exceptional but the normal 
state of things. The idea of the impossibilities of the 
supernatural is coincident with the beginnings of the ex- 
perimental science of nature. The man who is destitute 
of any notion of physical laws, who believes that by pray- 
ing he can change the clouds in their courses, stay disease 
and even death, finds nothing extraordinary in miracle, since 



LIFE OF JESUS 

to him the whole course of things is the result of the free 
will of the Deity. This intellectual state was that of Jesus 
during all his life. But in his great soul such a belief 
produced effects altogether opposed to those produced on 
men of vulgar mind. In the latter, belief in the special in- 
tervention of God caused a foolish credulity and the decep- 
tions of charlatans. In his case it led to a profound con- 
ception of the close relations of man with God, and to an 
exaggerated belief in the power of man — beautiful delu- 
sions, which were the secret of his strength; for, if they 
were one day to be the means of laying him open to the 
criticism of the physicist and the chemist, they gave him 
an influence over his own age such as no individual before 
his time had, or since has, possessed. 

His distinctive character showed itself while he was still 
very young. Legend delights to reveal him, even in his 
childhood, in revolt against paternal authority, and for- 
saking the commonplace ways of life to fulfil his mission. 49 
It is at least certain that relations of kinship were of little 
account to him. His family do not seem to have loved 
him 50 and at times he appears to have been harsh towards 
them. Jesus, like all men exclusively possessed by one 
idea, came to think lightly of the ties of blood. The bond 
of thought is the only one recognised by natures such as 
his. " Behold my mother and my brethren ! " he said, 
stretching forth his hand towards his disciples; " For who- 
soever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, 
he is my brother and sister and mother." 51 The simple 
people did not understand his meaning thus, and one day 
a woman passing near him cried out, " Blessed is the womb 

49 Luke 2: 42-50. The apocryphal Gospels are full of similar tales, 
carried to the grotesque. 

50 Matt. 13: 57; Mark 6: 4; John 7; 3-5. See p. 113, note 295. 

51 Matt. 12: 48; Mark 3: 33; Luke 8: 21; John 2:4; Gospel of Hebrews, 
in Jerome, Dial. adv. Pelag. 3: 2. 

84 



THE EDUCATION OF JESUS 

that bare thee, and the breasts which thou didst suck." But 
he said, " Yea, rather blessed are they that hear the word 
of God, and keep it " (Luke 11 : 27, 28). Soon, in his bold 
revolt against nature, he was to go still further; and we 
shall see him trampling under foot all that is human — ties 
of blood, love, and country, keeping soul and heart only 
for the idea which presented itself to him as the absolute 
form of righteousness and truth. 



35 



CHAPTER IV 

The Mental Development of Jesus 

As the earth in its cooled state no longer permits us to 
understand the phenomena of primitive creation, because 
the fire which transfused it is extinct, so there is always 
a certain insufficiency in historical explanations, when our 
timid methods of investigation are applied to the revolutions 
of the epochs of creation which have decided the fate of 
humanity. Jesus lived at one of those periods when the 
game of public life is freely played, and when the stake of 
human activity is increased a hundredfold. Every great 
role then entails death; for such movements imply liberty 
and an absence of preventive measures, which cannot exist 
without terrible alternatives. In days such as our own, man 
risks little and gains little. In heroic periods of human 
activity, man risks all and gains all. The good and the 
wicked, or at least those who believe themselves and are 
believed to be such, form opposing armies. The apotheosis 
is reached by the scaffold; characters have distinctive 
features, which engrave them as eternal types in the 
memory of men. Apart from the French revolution, no 
historical environment was so suitable as that in which 
Jesus was formed, to develop those hidden forces held by 
mankind, as it were in reserve, which are only visible in 
days of fevered excitement and peril. 

If the government of the world were a speculative 
problem, and the greatest philosopher were the man best 
fitted to tell his fellows what they ought to believe, it would 
be from quietude and reflection that those great moral and 
dogmatic truths called religions would proceed. But it is 
36 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

not so. Sakyamuni excepted, great religious founders have 
not been metaphysicians. Buddhism itself, which had its 
origin indeed in pure thought, conquered one half of Asia 
for motives that were wholly political and moral. As to 
the Semitic religions, they are as little philosophical as they 
well can be. Moses and Mahomet were not men of spec- 
ulative tendencies; they were men of action. It was by 
proposing action to their fellow-countrymen and their con- 
temporaries that they governed mankind. In like manner 
Jesus was not a theologian or a philosopher, with a more 
or less well constructed system. To be a disciple of Jesus 
it was not necessary to sign any formulary, or to profess 
any confession of faith; one thing alone was needful — to 
be attached to him, to love him. He never argued about 
God, for he felt him directly in himself. The rock of meta- 
physical subtleties against which Christianity broke from 
the third century onwards, was in nowise created by the 
founder. Jesus had neither dogma nor system, but a fixed 
personal resolution, which, exceeding in intensity every 
other created will, governs to this hour the destinies of 
humanity. 

The Jewish people from the Babylonian captivity up to 
the Middle Ages had the advantage of being in a state of 
high tension. That is why the interpreters of the spirit of 
the nation, during that long period, seemed to write under 
the influence of a burning fever, which placed them con- 
stantly either above or below reason, rarely in its via media. 
Never did man seize the problem of the future and of his 
destiny with a more desperate courage, a greater determina- 
tion to realise his possibilities to the utmost. Implicating 
the fate of mankind with that of their own little race, 
Jewish thinkers were the first to seek for a general theory 
of the progress of our species. Greece, always confined 
within its own bounds, and solely attentive to the petty 
37 



LIFE OF JESUS 

quarrels of its rival cities, had admirable historians ; but 
before the Roman epoch it would be vain to seek in 
classical literature for a general system of historical philos- 
ophy embracing all humanity. The Jew, on the other 
hand, thanks to a kind of prophetic sense which renders the 
Semite at times marvellously fitted to behold the great lines 
of the future, has made historj 7 enter into religion. Perhaps 
he owes a little of this spirit to Persia. Persia, from an 
ancient period, conceived of the history of the world as a 
series of evolutions, over each of which has presided a 
prophet. Each prophet has had his hazar, or reign of a 
thousand years (chiliasm), and of these successive ages, 
analogous to the millions of ages unrolled with each Buddha 
in India, is formed the course of events which prepare for 
the reign of Ormuzd. At the end of time, when the cycle of 
chiliasms shall be exhausted, the final paradise will come. 
Then men will live happy; the earth will be as one plain; 
there will be only one language, one law, and one govern- 
ment for all. But this future state will be preceded by 
terrible calamities. Dahak (the Persian Satan) will break 
his chains and fall upon the world. Two prophets will 
come to console mankind and to prepare for the great 
advent. 52 

These ideas ran through the world, and even reached 
Rome, where they inspired a cycle of prophetic poems, the 
fundamental ideas of which were the division of the history 
of mankind into periods, the succession of the gods corre- 
sponding to these periods, a complete renewal of the world, 
and the final advent of a golden age. 53 The book of Daniel 
and certain parts of the book of Enoch and of the Sibylline 

62 Yacna, 12: 24. Theopompus in Plutarch, Of I sis and Osiris, § 47. 
Minokhired, passage published in the Zeitschrift der deutschen morgen- 
landischen Gesellschaft, 1: 163. 

53 Virgil, Eel. 4: 4, with the commentary of Servius. Nogidius, cited 
by Servius on verse 10. 

38 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

books 54 form the Jewish expression of the same theory. It 
certainly cannot be maintained that these ideas were held 
by all. At first they were embraced only by a few men 
of lively imagination, who felt an inclination towards Gen- 
tile doctrines. The dry and narrow-minded author of the 
book of Esther never thought of the rest of the world, 
except to despise it and wish it evil. 55 The disillusioned 
Epicurean who wrote Ecclesiastes thought so little of the 
future that he even considered it useless to labour for one's 
children; in the eyes of this egoistical celibate, the highest 
wisdom is to exhaust one's fortune in one's own enjoyment. 56 
But the great achievements of a people are generally due 
to the minority. Notwithstanding all their immense faults 
of character, hard, egoistical, scoffing, cruel, narrow, subtle, 
and sophistical as they were, the Jewish people were the 
authors of the finest movement of disinterested enthusiasm 
recorded in history. Opposition always makes for the glory 
of a country. The greatest men of the nation are often 
those whom it puts to death. Socrates was the glory of the 
Athenians, who would not suffer him to live amongst them. 
Spinoza was the greatest of modern Jews, and the syna- 
gogue expelled him with ignominy. Jesus was the glory 
of the people of Israel, who crucified him. 

A mighty dream haunted the Jewish people for centuries, 
constantly renewing its youth in its decrepitude. Foreign 
to the theory of individual recompense, which Greece dif- 
fused under the name of the immortality of the soul, Judaea 
concentrated on her future as a nation all her power of 
love and longing. She believed that she possessed divine 
promises of a boundless future; and as the bitter reality, 

54 Carm. Sibyll 3: 97-817. 

"Esther 6: 13; 7: 10; 8: 7, 11-17; 9: 1-22. Comp. the apocryphal 
9: 10, 11; 14: 13 et seq.; 16: 20-24. 

56 Eccl. 1: 11; 2: 16, 18-24; 3: 19-22; 4: 8, 15, 16; 5: 17, 1ft; 6: 3, 6; 
8: 15; 9: 9, 10. 



LIFE OF JESUS 

from the ninth century before our era, gave the dominion 
of the world more and more to mere strength, and brutally 
crushed these aspirations, she took her stand in the union 
of the most impossible ideas, and attempted the most extra- 
ordinary gyrations. Before the captivity, when the whole 
earthly future of the nation had vanished, owing to the 
separation of the northern tribes, men dreamed of the res- 
toration of the house of David, the reconciliation of the two 
divisions of the people, and the triumph of theocracy and 
the worship of Jehovah over idolatrous religions. At the 
epoch of the captivity, a poet, full of harmony, beheld the 
sj)lendour of a future Jerusalem, to which the peoples 
and the distant isles should bow down, in colours so en- 
chanting that one might say a ray of light from the 
eyes of Jesus had come to him from a distance of six 
centuries. 57 

The victory of Cyrus at one time seemed to realise these 
aspirations. The grave disciples of the Avesta and the 
worshippers of Jehovah believed themselves brothers. 
Persia had succeeded, by banishing the complex devas and 
transforming them into demons (divs), in drawing from 
the old Aryan imaginations, which were essentially natural- 
istic, a species of monotheism. The prophetic tone of many 
of the teachings of Iran had much analogy with certain 
compositions of Hosea and Isaiah. Israel was at rest under 
the successors of Cyrus, 58 and under Xerxes (Ahasuerus) 
made herself feared by the Iranians themselves. But the 
triumphant and often cruel entrance of Greek and Roman 
civilisation into Asia cast her back upon her dreams. More 
than ever she invoked the Messiah as judge and avenger of 

57 See the last six chapters of Isaiah. 

58 The Achsemenidse. The whole Book of Esther breathes a strong 
attachment to this dynasty. Ecclesiastes, which seems to have been 
written at nearly the same time, shows great relaxation of Jewish thought. 

40 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

the peoples. A complete regeneration, a revolution shaking 
the whole world to its very foundation, was necessary to 
satisfy the mighty thirst for vengeance excited in her by 
the sense of her superiority, and by the sight of her humilia- 
tion. 59 

Had Israel possessed the so-called spiritual doctrine 
which divides man into two parts — the body and the soul — 
and finds it quite natural that, while the body decays, the 
soul should survive, this paroxysm of rage and of ener- 
getic protest would have had no reason to exist. But such 
a doctrine,' a product of Greek philosophy, did not accord 
with the traditions of the Jewish mind. The ancient Hebrew 
writings contain no trace of future rewards or punishments. 
Whilst the idea of tribal solidarity existed, it was natural 
that a strict retribution according to individual merits should 
not be imagined. So much the worse for the pious man who 
happened to live at an epoch of impiety ; like the others, he 
suffered the public misfortunes consequent on the general 
irreligion. This doctrine, bequeathed by the sages of the 
patriarchal era, constantly resulted in unsustainable con- 
tradictions. Already at the time of Job it was much 
shaken; the old men of Teman who professed it were 
behind the age, and the young Elihu, who intervened in 
order to combat them, dared to utter as his first word the 
essentially revolutionary sentiment, "It is not the great 
that are wise, nor the aged that understand judgment " 
(Job 32: 9). With the complications which had taken place 
in the world since the time of Alexander, the old Temanite 
and Mosaic principle had grown still more intolerable. 60 
Never had Israel been more faithful to the Law, and yet she 

59 Apocr. Epistle of Baruch, in Fabricius (Cod. pseud. V.T.2: 47) and 
Ceriani (Monum. sacra et prof ana, 1, 1: 96). 

60 It is, however, remarkable that the son of Sirach holds strictly to 
this view (Ecclesiasticus 17: 26-28; 22: 10, 11; 30: 4; 41: 1, 2; 44: 9). 
The author of the book of Wisdom is of quite a different opinion. 

41 



LIFE OF JESUS 

had been subjected to the atrocious persecution of Anti- 
ochus. Only a rhetorician, accustomed to repeat old 
phrases grown meaningless, could dare to assert that these 
evils proceeded from the unfaithfulness of the people. 61 
What! those victims who died for their faith, those heroic 
Maccabees, that mother with her seven sons — will Jehovah 
forget them eternally, abandon them to the corruption of 
the grave? (2 Mace. 7.) Possibly a worldly and incred- 
ulous Sadducee might not recoil before such a deduction, 
and a consummate sage, like Antigonus of Soco, 62 might 
well maintain that we must not practice virtue like slaves 
expecting a recompense, that we must be virtuous without 
hope. But the mass of the people could not be contented 
with this. Some, adopting the principle of philosophical 
immortality, imagined the righteous living in the memory 
of God, glorious for ever in the remembrance of men, and 
judging the wicked, who had persecuted them. 63 " They live 
in the sight of God . . . they are known of God " 
(Wisdom 4: 1). That was their reward. Others, espe- 
cially the Pharisees, had recourse to the doctrine of the 
resurrection. 64 The righteous will live again to participate 
in the Messianic kingdom. They will live again in the 
flesh, confronting a world of which they will be kings and 
judges; they will behold the triumph of their ideas and 
the humiliation of their foes. 

61 Esther (apocr.) 14: 6, 7. Apocryphal epistle of Baruch (Fabricius 
and Ceriani as above). 

62 Pirke Aboth, 1:3. 

63 Wisdom of Solomon 2-6, 8: 13; Pirke Aboth, 4: 16; De rations 
imperio (ascribed to Josephus), 8, 13, 16, 18. It is further to be noticed 
that the author of this latter treatise puts personal reward only in the 
second rank as motive. The mainspring of the martyr's devotion is pure 
love of the Law, the benefit of his death to the people, and the glory that 
will attach to his name (Wisdom 4: 1 et seq. Eccles. 44 et seq. Josephus, 
Wars, 2, 8: 10; 3, 8: 5). 

84 2 Mace. 7: 9, 14; 12: 43, 44. 

42 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

Among the ancient people of Israel only very slight 
traces of this fundamental dogma are to be found. The 
Sadducee, who had no faith in it, was in reality true to the 
old Jewish doctrine; it was the Pharisee, the believer in the 
resurrection, who was the innovator. But in religion it is 
always the zealous party that innovates, that progresses and 
has influence. And indeed, the resurrection, an idea totally 
\ different from that of the immortality of the soul, emerged 
\v§ry naturally from the ancient doctrines and from the 
position of the people. Perhaps Persia also furnished some 
df its elements. 65 At any rate, in combination with the 
belief in the Messiah, and the doctrine of an approaching 
renewal of all things, the dogma of the resurrection formed 
the basis of those apocalyptic theories which, without being 
articles of faith (the orthodox Sanhedrim of Jerusalem 
does not appear to have adopted them), pervaded all 
imaginations, and produced a great fermentation from one 
end of the Jewish world to the other. The total absence 
of dogmatic rigour made it possible for very contradictory 
views to be simultaneously admitted even upon so important 
a point. Sometimes the righteous ^man was to await the 
resurrection ; sometimes he was to be received at the moment 
of death into Abraham's bosom; sometimes the resurrection 
was to be general; sometimes it was to be reserved for the 
faithful alone; sometimes it supposed a regenerated world 
and a new Jerusalem; sometimes it implied a previous 
annihilation of the universe. 

Jesus, as soon as he had any thought of his own, entered 
into the burning atmosphere which was created in Palestine 
by the ideas we have just described. These ideas were 
taught in no school; but they were in the air, and the soul 
of the young reformer was soon filled with them. Hesita- 

e5 Theopompus in Diog. Laert. proem. 9; Boundchesch, 31. Traces 
of the doctrine of resurrection in the Avesta are very doubtful. 

43 



LIFE OF JESUS 

tions and doubts, such as we have, never reached him. On 
the summit of the mountain of Nazareth, where no man 
can sit to-day without an uneasy, though it may be frivolous, 
feeling concerning his destiny, Jesus must often have sat 
unassailed by a single doubt. Unenthralled of selfishness 
— that source of our troubles which makes us seek with 
eagerness a reward for virtue beyond the tomb — he thought 
only of his work, of his race, and of mankind. The moun- 
tains, the sea, the blue sky, the lofty plains on the horizon, 
were for him, not the melancholy vision of a soul that asks 
of nature the knowledge of its destiny, but the certain 
symbol, the transparent shadow, of a world invisible and 
a new heaven. 

Jesus never attached much importance to the political 
events of his time, and probably was little acquainted with 
them. The court of the Herods was a world so different 
from his own that he doubtless knew it only by name. 
Herod the Great died about the year in which Jesus was 
born, leaving enduring memories, and monuments which 
must compel posterity, however malevolent it may be, to 
couple his name with that of Solomon; yet nevertheless his 
was an incomplete work that could not be continued. The 
astute Idumean, an ambitious man of secular instincts who 
found himself lost in a maze of religious controversies, had 
the advantage which coolness and judgment, untrammelled 
by morality, give over passionate fanatics. But his idea of 
a temporal kingdom of Israel, even if it had not been an 
anachronism, considering the state of the world at the time 
at which it was conceived, would have miscarried, like the 
similar scheme devised by Solomon, owing to difficulties 
due to the character of the nation. His three sons were 
only satraps of Rome, like the rajahs of India under 
English rule. Antipater, or Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee 
and PerSea, of whom Jesus was a subject all his life, was an 
44 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

idle and weak prince, a favourite and flatterer of Tiberius, 
and too often led away by the bad influence of his second 
wife, Herodias. 66 Philip, tetrarch of Gaulonitis and 
Batanea, into whose territories Jesus made frequent jour- 
neys, was a much better sovereign. 67 As to Archelaus, eth- 
narch of Jerusalem, he could not have been known by Jesus, 
who was about ten years old when this man, who was feeble 
and without character, though sometimes violent, was de- 
throned by Augustus. 68 The last trace of autonomy was 
thus lost to Jerusalem. United to Samaria and Idumea, 
Judaea formed a kind of dependency of the province of 
Syria, in which the senator, Publius Sulpicius Quirinius, 69 
a well-known consul, was the imperial legate. A series of 
Roman procurators, subordinate in important matters to 
the imperial legate of Syria — Coponius, Marcus Ambivius, 
Annius Rufus, Valerius Gratus, and lastly (in the twenty- 
sixth year of our era) Pontius Pilate — followed one an- 
other, 70 and were constantly employed in extinguishing the 
volcano in eruption beneath their feet. 

As a matter of fact, continual seditions, fomented by the 
zealots of Mosaism, did not cease to agitate Jerusalem 
during the whole of this period. 71 Death for the seditious 
was inevitable; but death, when the integrity of the Law 
was in question, was sought with eagerness. To overthrow 
the Roman eagle, to destroy the works of art raised by the 
Herods — in which the Mosaic regulations were not always 

66 Luke 3: 19. Josephus, Antiq. 18, 5: 1; 7: 1, 2. 

67 Josephus, Antiq. 18, 4: 6. 

68 Ibid., 17, 13: 2; Wars, 2, 7: 3. 

69 Orelli, Inscr. Lat. 3693. Henzen, Suppl 7041. Fasti Pramest., 
March 6, April 28 (Corpus inscr. Lat. 1: 314, 317). Borghesi, Fast, 
consul, (unedited), a.u. 742. Mommsen, Res gestae divi Augusti, 
111. Tacitus, Ann. 2: 30; 3: 48. Strabo, 12, 6: 5. 

70 Josephus, Antiquities, 18. 

71 Ibid., the whole of books 17 and 18; Wars, 1 and 2. 

45 



LIFE OF JESUS 

respected 72 — to rise in revolt against the votive escutcheons 
set up by the procurators, the inscriptions upon which 
seemed tainted with idolatry/ 3 — these were perpetual temp- 
tations to fanatics, who had reached the degree of exalta- 
tion that deprives men of every care for life. Judas, son 
of Sariphea, and Matthias, son of Margaloth, two very 
famous doctors of the Law, formed against the established 
order of things a boldly aggressive party, which continued 
to exist after their execution. 74 The Samaritans were agi- 
tated by movements of the same character. 75 It seemed as 
though the Law had never counted a greater number of im- 
passioned votaries than at this time, when he was already 
alive who, by the full authority of his genius and by the 
grandeur of his soul, was about to annul it. The " Zelotes " 
(Kena'im), or " Sicarii," pious assassins who took upon 
themselves the duty of slaying every one who, in their esti- 
mation, broke the Law, began to appear. 76 Representatives 
of a totally different spirit, the miracle-mongers (Thauma- 
turgi), who had the reputation of possessing divinity, found 
believers as a consequence of the imperious craving for the 
supernatural and the divine which was felt by the age. 77 

A movement which had much more influence upon Jesus 
was that of Judas the Gaulonite, or Galilean. Of all the 
exactions to which the country lately conquered by Rome 
was subjected, the census was the most unpopular. This 
measure, which always astonishes people little accustomed 
to the requirements of great central administrations, was 

72 Id. Antiquities, 15, 10: 4; Wars, 1, 33: 2, 3. Compare the Book of 
Enoch 97: 13, 14. 

73 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 38. 

74 Josephus, Antiquities, 17, 6: 2; Wars, 1, 33: 3 et seq. 

75 Id. Antiq., 18, 4: 1,2. 

76 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 9: 6. John 16: 2. Josephus, Wars, 4, 5; 
7, 8: 1. 

77 As Simon Magus, see Acts 8: 9-11. 

46 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

particularly objectionable to the Jews. 78 Already, under 
David, we know that a numbering of the people had 
provoked violent recriminations and the menaces of the 
prophets (2 Sam. 24). The census, in fact, was the basis 
of taxation; and taxation, according to the ideas of pure 
theocracy, was almost an impiety. God being the sole 
master whom man ought to recognise, to pay tithe to a sec- 
ular sovereign was, in a measure, to put him in the place 
of God. Completely foreign to the idea of the state, 
Jewish theocracy in this matter only acted up to its logical 
induction — the negation of civil society and of all govern- 
ment. The money in the public treasury was considered 
stolen money. 79 The census ordered by Quirinius (in the 
year 6 of the Christian era) led to a strong revival of these 
ideas and caused a great upheaval. A popular movement 
began in the northern provinces. Judas, a man belonging 
to the town of Gamala, upon the eastern shore of the Lake 
of Tiberias, and a Pharisee named Sadok, by denying the 
lawfulness of the tax, gathered round them a numerous 
party, which soon broke out into open revolt. 80 The funda- 
mental maxims of this school were, that freedom was worth 
more than life, and that they ought to call no man " master " 
— that title belonging to God alone. Judas doubtless had 
many other principles, which Josephus, always careful not 
to compromise his co-religionists, designedly passes by in 
silence ; for it is impossible to understand how, for so simple 
an idea, the Jewish historian should accord him a place 
among the philosophers of his nation, and regard him as the 

78 Discourse of Claudius at Lyons, tab. 2, s. f. De Boissieu, Inscr. 
ant. de Lyon, 136. 

79 Babylonian Talmud, Baba kama, 113 a; Schabbath, 33 b. 

80 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 1: 1, 6; 20, 5: 2. Wars, 2, 8: 1; 7, 8: 1. 
Acts 5: 37. In the Acts we find another agitator, Theudas, before 
Judas the Gaulonite; but this is an anachronism; the movement of 
Theudas took place a.d. 44 (Josephus, Antiq. 20, 5:1). 

47 



LIFE OF JESUS 

founder of a fourth school on an equality with those of 
the Pharisees, the Sadduce s, and the Essenes. Judas was 
evidently the leader of a Galilean sect, filled with the 
Messianic idea, which finally became a political movement. 
The procurator Coponius crushed the Gaulonite's sedition, 
but the school survived and kept its chiefs. Under the 
leadership of Menahem, son of the founder, and of a 
certain Eleazar, his relative, we .again find them very 
active in the last struggles of the Jews against the 
Romans. 81 It may be that Jesus saw this Judas, whose 
conception of the Jewish revolution differed so widely from 
his own ; at any rate he knew his school, and it was probably 
by a reaction from his error that he pronounced his axiom 
upon the penny of Caesar. Jesus, in his wisdom far re- 
moved from all sedition, profited by the fault of his pre- 
decessor, and dreamed of another kingdom and another 
deliverance. 

Galilee was thus a vast furnace wherein the most diverse 
elements were seething together. 82 An extraordinary con- 
tempt for life, or, to be more accurate, a kind of appetite 
for death, was the result of these agitations. 83 Experience 
counts for nothing in great fanatical movements. Algeria, 
in the early years of the French occupation, saw inspired 
men, who declared themselves to be invulnerable and sent 
by God to sweep forth the infidels, arise with every spring ; 
by the following year their death was forgotten, and their 
successors found no less credence. Though in some 
respects very stern, the Roman power was as yet but 
little inclined to be meddlesome, and permitted a good deal 
of liberty. Those great brutal despotisms, terrible though 

81 Josephus, Antiquities, 20, 5: 2; Wars, 2, 17: 8, 9; 7, 8: 6. 

82 Luke 13: 1. The Galilaean movement of Judas son of Hezekiah 
seems not to have had a religious aim; perhaps, however, this has been 
dissembled by Josephus (Antiq., 17, 10: 5). 

83 Josephus, Antiquities, 17, 6: 2, 3; 18, 1: 1. 

48 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

they might be in repressing sedition, were not so suspicious 
as are powers, which have j '-dogmatic faith to defend. 
They permitted every freedom until the day when they 
thought it necessary to act stringently. It is not recorded 
that Jesus was even once interfered with by the authorities 
during the whole of his wandering life. Liberty such as 
this, and, above all, the happiness which Galilee enjoyed in 
being much less fettered by the bonds of Pharisaic ped- 
antry, gave that province a real superiority over Jerusalem. 
The revolution, or, in other words, the expectance of the 
Messiah, caused there a general activity of thought. Men 
deemed themselves on the eve of the great renewal of 
all things ; the Scriptures, tortured into divers meanings, 
fostered the most colossal hopes. In every line of the 
simple writings of the Old Testament they beheld the assur- 
ance, and, in a manner, the programme of the future reign, 
which was to bring peace to the righteous and to consum- 
mate for ever the work of God. 

From all time this division into two parties, opposed both 
in interest and spirit, had been a powerful principle in the 
moral development of the Hebrew nation. Every people 
called to high destinies must be of necessity a little world 
in itself, including opposite poles. In Greece, at a few 
leagues' distance from each other, were Sparta and Athens 
— to a superficial observer the two antipodes, but, in reality, 
rival sisters, each necessary to the other. It was the same 
with Judaea. In a sense less brilliant than the development 
of Jerusalem, that of the north was on the whole much 
more fertile ; the highest achievements of the Jewish people 
have always proceeded thence. A complete absence of 
feeling for nature, bordering on harshness, narrowness, and 
ferocity, has stamped all purely Hierosolymite works with 
a certain grandeur, but it is a melancholy, sterile, and 
repellent grandeur. With its solemn doctors, its insipid 
49 



LIFE OF JESUS 

canonists, its hypocritical and splenetic devotees, Jerusalem 
would not have conquered humanity. The north has given 
to the world the simple Shunamite, the humble Canaanite, 
the impassioned Magdalene, the good foster-father Joseph, 
and the Virgin Mary. It was the north alone that created 
Christianity; Jerusalem, on the other hand, was the true 
home of the stubborn Judaism which, founded by the 
Pharisees and fixed by the Talmud, has traversed the 
Middle Ages and come down to us. 

A beautiful natural environment tended to produce the 
much less austere spirit — the less rigidly monotheistic spirit, 
if I may say so — which imprinted a charming and idyllic 
character on all the dreams of Galilee. The saddest coun- 
try in the world is perhaps the region surrounding Jeru- 
salem. Galilee, on the contrary, was a very green, shady, 
smiling land, the true home of the Song of Songs, and the 
Songs of the Well-beloved. 84 During the months of March 
and April, the country is a carpet of flowers of an incom- 
parable variety of colours. The animals are small and 
extremely gentle — delicate and playful turtle-doves, black- 
birds so light that they rest on a blade of grass without 
bending it, tufted larks which almost venture under the feet 
of the traveller, little river tortoises with mild bright eyes, 
storks of gravely modest mien, which, casting aside all 
timidity, allow man to come quite near them, and seem 
indeed to invite his approach. In no country in the world 

84 The shocking condition to which the country is now reduced, espe- 
cially near Lake Tiberias, should not deceive us. These regions, now 
blasted, were once an earthly paradise. The baths of Tiberias, which are 
now a dreadful abode, were once the loveliest spot in Galilee (Josephus, 
Antiquities, 18, 2:3). Josephus (Wars, 3, 10: 8) boasts of the fine trees 
of the plain of Gennesareth, where there is now not one left. Antoninus, 
the martyr, about a.d. 600 — fifty years before the Moslem invasion — 
still found Galilee covered with delightful plantations, and compares its 
fruitfulness with that of Egypt (Itin. 5). Compare Josephus, Wars, 3, 
3:2. 

50 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

do the mountains extend with more harmonious outlines 
or inspire higher thoughts. Jesus seems to have had an 
especial love for them. The most important events of his 
divine career took place upon the mountains. It was there 
that he was best inspired; 85 it was there that he had mystic 
communion with the ancient prophets ; and it was there 
that his transfiguration was revealed to the eyes of his 
disciples. 86 

This beautiful country now, owing to the impoverishment 
brought by Turkish Islamism into human life, a land of 
heart-rending gloom, yet nevertheless, in all that man can- 
not destroy, breathing an air of freedom and mildness and 
tenderness, was filled at the time of Jesus with prosperity 
and gaiety. The Galileans had the reputation of being ener- 
getic, brave, and industrious. 87 If we except Tiberias, built 
in the Roman style by Antipas in honour of Tiberius (about 
the year 15), 88 Galilee had no large towns. The country 
was nevertheless very populous, covered with small towns 
and large villages, and skilfully cultivated in all its parts. 89 
From the ruins that remain of its former glories, we can 
imagine an agricultural people, by no means gifted in art, 
caring little for luxury, indifferent to the beauties of form, 
and exclusively idealistic. The country abounded in run- 
ning streams and in fruits; the large farms were shaded 
with vines and fig-trees; the gardens were full of apple, 
walnut, and pomegranate trees. 90 The wine was excellent, 
if we may judge by that which the Jews still make at Safed, 

85 Matt. 5: 1; 14: 23. Luke 6: 12. 

86 Matt. 17: 1-8; Mark 9:1-8; Luke 9: 28-36. 

87 Josephus, Wars, 3, 3: 2. 

88 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 2: 2; Wars, 2, 9: 1; Life, 12, 13, 64. 

89 Josephus, Wars, 3, 3: 2. 

90 We may fancy them from several enclosures near Nazareth (cf. 
Cant., 2: 3, 5, 13; 4: 13 ; 6: 6, 10; 7: 8, 12; 8: 2, 5; Antoninus the martyr, 
as above). The aspect of the great farms is still well preserved in the 
southerly region of Tyre (old tribe of Asher). Traces of the ancient 

51 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and the people drank much of it. 91 This contented life of 
easy satisfaction had no resemblance to the gross material- 
ism of our own peasantry, the coarse enjoyments of agri- 
cultural Normandy, or the heavy mirth of the Flemish. It 
was spiritualised in ethereal dreams by a kind of poetic 
mysticism, in which heaven and earth were made one. Leave 
the austere Baptist in his Judaean desert to preach repent- 
ance with unceasing invective, and to live on locusts in the 
company of jackals! Why should the guests of the bride- 
groom fast while the bridegroom is with them? Joy will 
be a part of the kingdom of God. Is she not the daughter 
of the humble in heart, of men of good will ? 

The whole history of nascent Christianity has in this way 
become a delightful pastoral. A Messiah at the marriage 
feast — the courtesan and the good Zaccheus bidden to his 
festivals — the founders of the kingdom of heaven like a 
bridal procession, — that is what Galilee has dared to offer, 
and to make the world accept. Greece has drawn admir- 
able pictures of human life in sculpture and in poetry, but 
they are ever without receding backgrounds and distant 
horizons. In Galilee were wanting the marble, the skilled 
craftsman, the exquisite and refined language. But Galilee 
has created the sublimest ideal for the popular imagina- 
tion; since behind its idyll the destiny of humanity is being 
decided, and the light which illumines its pictures is the 
sun of the kingdom of God. 

Jesus lived and grew up in these beautiful surroundings. 
From his childhood he went nearly every year to the 
feast at Jerusalem (Luke 2: 41). This pilgrimage had a 
sweet solemnity for provincial Jews. Whole series of 

agriculture of Palestine, with its threshing-floors, press-rooms, silos, 
stalls, mills, etc., cut in the rock, appear at every step. 

91 Matt. 9: 17; 11: 19. Mark 2: 22. Luke 5: 37; 7: 34. John 
2: 3-10. 

52 



MENTAL DEVELOPMENT 

psalms were consecrated to celebrating the happiness of 
thus journeying in family companionship during several 
Spring days by hill and dale, every pilgrim eager to behold 
the splendours of Jerusalem, the dread solemnities of the 
sacred courts, and to know the joy of brethren dwelling 
together in unity. 92 The route which Jesus ordinarily took 
in these journeys was that which is followed to this day 
through Ginaea and Shechem. 93 From Shechem to Jerusa- 
lem the journey is exhausting. But the neighbourhood of 
the old sanctuaries of Shiloh and Bethel, near which the 
pilgrims pass, keeps their interest alive. Ain-el-Haramie, 
the last halting-place, 94 is a spot which possesses a melan- 
choly charm; and there are few impressions which can 
equal that experienced on encamping there for the night. 
The valley is narrow and sombre, and a dark stream issues 
from the crags, full of tombs hewn out of the solid rock, 
which hem it in. It is, I think, the " valley of weeping,"' 
or of dropping waters, described as one of the resting- 
places by the way in the delightful eighty-fourth Psalm, 
and forming an emblem of life for the sad sweet mysticism 
of the Middle Ages. Early the next day the pilgrims would 
be at Jerusalem ; that expectation even now sustains the car- 
avan with hope, making the night short and slumber light. 

These pilgrimages, in which the re-united nation ex- 
changed its ideas, were almost always centres of great agita- 
tion in thought; and they placed Jesus in contact with the 
very soul of his people, probably inspiring him whilst still 
young with a strong antipathy to the failings of the official 

92 See especially Psalms 84, 122, 133. 

9 3 Luke 9 : 51-53 ; 22 : 11 . John 4:4. Josephus, Antiquities, 20, 6 :1 ; 
Wars, 2, 12: 3; Life, 52. Pilgrims, however, often went by way of 
Peraea to avoid Samaria, where they might be in danger (Matt. 19: 1; 
Mark 10: 1). 

94 According to Josephus (Life, 52) it was a three days' journey. But 
the stage from Shechem to Jerusalem must often have been divided. 

53 



LIFE OF JESUS 

representatives of Judaism. It is believed that very early 
in life the wilderness also had some influence on his develop- 
ment, and that he made long sojourns there. But the God 
he found in the wilderness was not his God. It was rather 
the God of Job, stern and terrible, accountable to no man. 
Sometimes Satan came to tempt him. Then he returned 
into his beloved Galilee, and once more found his heavenly 
Father in the midst of green hills and clear fountains — 
among the women and children, who, with joyous soul and 
with the song of the angels in their hearts, awaited the 
salvation of Israel. 



54 



CHAPTER V 

The First Teachings of Jesus 

Joseph died before his son had taken any part in public 
affairs. Thus Mary remained the head of the family, and 
this explains why her son, when it was necessary to distin- 
guish him from many others of the same name, was most 
frequently called the " son of Mary." 95 It seems that, 
having, by the death of her husband, been left friendless at 
Nazareth, she withdrew to Cana, 96 whence originally she 
may have come. Cana 97 was a small town situated at a dis- 
tance of from two to two and a half hours' journey from 
Nazareth, at the foot of the mountains which form the 
northern boundary of the plain of Asochis. The prospect, 
less imposing than at Nazareth, extends over the whole 
plain, and is bounded in a most picturesque manner by the 
mountains of Nazareth and the hills of Sepphoris. 

Jesus seems to have lived for some time in this place. 
Here he probably spent a part of his youth, and it was 
here that his greatness first revealed itself. 98 He followed 

95 This is the expression of Mark 6: 3 (cf. Matt, 13: 55). Mark does 
not speak of Joseph; the fourth Gospel and Luke, on the other hand, 
prefer the expression "son of Joseph" (Luke 3: 23; 4: 22. John 1: 45; 
6: 42) . It is singular that the fourth Gospel never calls the mother of 
Jesus by her name. The name "Ben- Joseph" in the Talmud, indicat- 
ing one of the Messiahs, is suggestive. 

96 John 2: 1; 4: 46. John is the only writer who seems informed 
on this point. 

97 Now Kana-el Djelil, the same with Cana Galile of the times of the 
Crusades (see Archives des missions scientifiques, ser. 2, vol. 3, p. 370). 
Kefr Kenna, an hour or hour and a half north-northeast from Nazareth 
(Capharchemme of the Crusades) is distinct from this. 

98 John 2: 11; 4: 46. One or two of his disciples were from Cana 
(John 21: 2; Matt. 10: 4; Mark 3: 18). 

55 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the trade of his father, which was that of a carpenter." 
In this there is nothing humiliating or irksome. The Jewish 
custom required that a man devoted to intellectual work 
should learn a handicraft. The most celebrated doctors 
had their trades ; 10 ° thus St. Paul, who was so carefully 
educated, was a tent-maker (Acts 18: 3). Jesus never mar- 
ried. His whole capacity for love was concentrated upon 
that which he felt was his heavenly vocation. The ex- 
tremely delicate feeling towards women which we remark 
in him was not inconsistent with the exclusive devotion which 
he had for his ideal. 101 Like Francis of Assisi and Francis 
of Sales, he treated as sisters the women who devoted them- 
selves to the same work as himself; he had his St. Clare, his 
Frances of Chantal. But it is probable that they loved him 
more than they loved the work; he was, no doubt, more 
beloved than loving. Thus, as often happens in very lofty 
natures, tenderness of heart was in him transformed into 
an infinite sweetness, a vague poetry, a universal charm. 
His relations, free and intimate but of an entirely moral 
kind, with women of dubious character, are also to be ex- 
plained by the passion which attached him to the glory of 
his Father, and made him jealously anxious for all beautiful 
creatures who could contribute to it. 102 

Through what stages did the ideas of Jesus progress 
during this obscure period of his life? By what medita- 
tions did he enter upon his career as a prophet? On these 
points we are ignorant, his history having reached us in 
scattered narratives lacking in chronological exactness. 
But the development of living personality is everywhere the 
same ; and there can be no doubt that the growth of a char- 

99 Matt. 13: 55; Mark 6:3; Justin, Try ph. 88. 
ioo -por example, R. Johanan the shoemaker; R. Isaac the blacksmith. 

101 See chap. 9, below. 

102 Luke 7: 37-50. John 4: 7-27; 8: 3-11. 

56 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

acter so powerful as that of Jesus obeyed very rigorous 
laws. A high conception of Divinity, not derived from 
Judaism, but apparently the creation of his own great mind, 
was, in some measure, the guiding principle to which his 
power was due. It is here most essential that we should 
put aside the ideas familiar to us, and the discussions in 
which petty intellects exhaust themselves. Properly to un- 
derstand the precise character of the piety of Jesus, we 
must forget all that has come between the Gospel and our- 
selves. Deism and pantheism have become the two poles 
of theology. The paltry discussions of scholasticism, the 
intellectual aridity of Descartes, the deep-rooted irreligion 
of the eighteenth century, by lessening God, and, in a 
manner, limiting him by the exclusion of all that is not his 
very self, have stifled all fertile ideas of the divine in the 
breast of modern rationalism. If God, in fact, be a per- 
sonal being external to us, he who believes himself to have 
peculiar relations with God is a " visionary " ; and since 
the physical and physiological sciences have shown us that 
all supernatural visions are illusions, the logical deist finds 
it impossible to understand the great beliefs of ages past. 
Pantheism, on the other hand, by its suppression of the 
divine personality, is as far as it can be from the living 
God of the ancient religions. Were the men who compre- 
hended God best — Sakyamuni, Plato, St. Paul, St. Francis 
of Assisi, and St. Augustine (at some periods of his fluctu- 
ating life) — deists or pantheists? Such a question is mean- 
ingless. Physical and metaphysical proofs of the existence 
of God would have been quite indifferent to these great 
men. They felt the divine within themselves. 

Jesus must be placed in the front rank of this great 

family of the true sons of God. Jesus had no visions ; God 

did not speak to him as to one outside of himself; God was 

in. him; he felt himself with God, and from his own heart 

57 



LIFE OF JESUS 

he drew all that he said of his Father. He dwelt in the 
bosom of God by constant communion with him; he beheld 
him not, but he understood him, without having need of the 
thunder and the burning bush of Moses, of the revealing 
tempest of Job, of the oracle of the old Greek sages, of 
the familiar spirit of Socrates, or of the angel Gabriel of 
Mahomet. Here we find nothing resembling the imagina- 
tion and the hallucination of a St. Theresa. The frenzy 
of the Sufi proclaiming himself one with God is also quite 
another thing. Jesus never once gave utterance to the sacri- 
legious idea that he was God. He believed himself to have 
direct communion with God; he believed himself to be the 
Son of God. The highest consciousness of God which has 
ever existed in the heart of man was that of Jesus. 

On the other hand, we understand how Jesus, having such 
a spiritual standpoint at the outset, could never have been 
a speculative philosopher like Sakyamuni. Nothing is 
farther from scholastic theology than the Gospel. 103 The 
speculations of the Greek fathers on the divine essence 
proceed from an entirely different spirit. God, conceived 
simply as Father, — such was the whole theology of Jesus. 
And this was not with him a theoretical principle, a doctrine 
more or less proved, which he sought to inculcate in others. 
He did not argue with his disciples; 104 he exacted from 
them no effort of attention. He did not preach his opinions ; 
he preached himself. Very great and highly disinterested 
minds often present, associated with much loftiness, those 
characteristics of perpetual attention to themselves and 
extreme personal susceptibility which, in general, are 

103 The discourses which the fourth Gospel puts into the mouth of 
Jesus contain the germ of such a theology; but, since they utterly con- 
tradict those of the Synoptics, which doubtless represent the primitive 
Logia, they must be taken as documents of apostolic history, not as in- 
cidents in his life. 

104 See Matt. 9: 9, and other similar accounts. 

58 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

peculiar to women. 103 Their conviction that God is in them 
and perpetually occupies himself with thein, is so strong 
that they have no dread of imposing themselves upon 
others; our reserve, and our respect for the opinion of 
others, which is a part of our weakness, could not belong 
to them. This exaltation of personality is not egoism; for 
such men, possessed by their idea, gladly give their lives to 
consummate their work; it is the identification of self with 
the object it has embraced, carried to its farthest point. It 
is considered vainglory by those who see in the new doctrine 
only the personal fantasy of the founder ; but it is the finger 
of God to those who see the result. Here the fool stands 
side by side with the inspired man; only the fool never 
succeeds. It has not yet been given to insanity to influence 
human progress seriously. 

It can hardly be doubted that Jesus did not attain at first 
to this high affirmation of himself. But it is probable that, 
from the first, he looked upon his relationship with God as 
that of a son with his father. Herein was his great origin- 
ality; in this he had nothing in common with his race. 106 
Neither Jew nor Mussulman has understood this sweet the- 
ology of love. The God of Jesus is not that relentless 
master who kills us, or damns us, or saves us according to 
his good pleasure. The God of Jesus is our Father. We 
hear him when we listen to the gentle voice that breathes 
within us, " Abba, Father." The God of Jesus is not the 
unjust despot who has chosen .Israel for his people and 
specially protects them. He is the God of humanity. Jesus 
was not a patriot like the Maccabees, or a theocrat like 
Judas the Gaulonite. Rising fearlessly above the preju- 

105 See, for example, John 21: 15-17, noting that this trait seems 
to have been exaggerated in the fourth Gospel. 

106 The lofty soul of Philo comes in touch here, as at many other points 
with that of Jesus. De confus. ling., 14; De migr. Abrah, 1; De somniis, 
2: 41; De agric, Noe, 12; De mutat. naminum, 4. 

59 



LIFE OF JESUS 

dices of his nation, he asserted the universal fatherhood of 
God. The Gaulonite maintained that a man should rather 
die than give to any other than God the name of 
" Master " ; Jesus left the title to any one who cared to 
take it, and for God reserved a dearer name. Whilst he 
accorded the great ones of the earth, who to him were repre- 
sentatives of power, an ironical respect, he established the 
supreme consolation — recourse to the Father whom every 
man has in heaven — and the true kingdom of God, which 
every man bears in his heart. 

The term " kingdom of God," or " kingdom of 
heaven," 107 was the favourite expression of Jesus to de- 
scribe the revolution which he inaugurated in the world. 108 
Like almost all the Messianic terminology, it came from the 
book of Daniel. According to the author of that extraor- 
dinary work, the four profane empires, destined to ruin, 
were to be succeeded b}^ a fifth empire which should be 
that of the saints, and last for ever. 109 This reign of God 
upon earth naturally lent itself to the most diverse inter- 
pretations. To many it was the reign of the Messiah or of 
a new David; to Jewish theology the "kingdom of God" 
is most frequently only Judaism itself — the true religion, 
the monotheistic worship, piety. 110 In the latter part of 
his life Jesus believed that this reign would be realised in 

107 The word "heaven," in the rabbinical language of that day, is a 
synonym of the name "God," which was commonly avoided. See 
Buxtorf, Lex. Chald. Talm. Rabb., under the word D^KN and Daniel 4: 
22, 23 (cf. Matt. 21: 25; Mark 11: 30, 31; Luke 15: 18, 21, and 20: 4, 5). 

108 This expression occurs constantly in the Synoptics, the Acts, and the 
Pauline epistles. That it appears only once in the fourth Gospel (3: 
3, 5), is because the discourses here reported are far from representing 
the real speech of Jesus. 

109 Daniel 2: 44; 7: 13, 14, 22, 27. Apocal. of Baruch in Ceriani: 
Monumenta sacra et prof ana, 1: 82 (fasc. 2). 

110 Mishna Berakoth, 2: 1, 3. Jerusalem Talmud, Berakoth, 2: 2; 
Kidduschin, 1: 2. Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth, 15 a; Mekilta, 42 b; 
Siphra, 17 b. The expression often occurs in the Midraschim. 

60 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

a material form by a sudden regeneration of the world. 
But probably this was not his first idea. 111 The admirable 
moral conclusion which he draws from the idea of God as 
a Father, was not that of the enthusiasts who believed the 
world was near its end, and by asceticism prepared them- 
selves for a chimerical catastrophe ; it is that of a world of 
men who have lived, and still would live. " The kingdom 
of God is among you," 112 said he to those that sought with 
subtilty for external signs. The realistic conception of the 
Divine advent was but a cloud, a transient error, which his 
death has made us forget. The Jesus who founded the true 
kingdom of God, the kingdom of the humble and meek, was 
the Jesus of early life 113 — of those chaste and simple days 
when the voice of his Father re-echoed within him in clearer 
tones. It was then, for some months, perhaps a year, that 
God truly dwelt upon earth. The voice of the young car- 
penter suddenly acquired a wonderful sweetness. An in- 
finite charm was breathed forth from his person, and those 
who had seen him up to that time no longer recognised him. 114 
As yet he had no disciples, and the group of men which 
gathered about him was neither a sect nor a school; but 
already they felt a common spirit, a sweet and permeating 
influence. His lovable character, accompanied doubtless by 
one of those exquisite faces 115 occasionally to be seen in 
the Jewish race, threw around him a circle of fascination 

111 Matt. 5: 10; 6: 10, 33; 11: 11; 12: 28; 18: 4; 19: 12. Mark 10: 
14, 15; 12: 34. Luke 12: 31. 

112 The rendering "within you" is less accurate, though not remote 
from the thought of Jesus in this passage. 

113 The impressive theory of the revelation of the Son of Man first 
appears in the Synoptics just before the story of the Passion (Matt. 
24: 30). The early discourses, especially in Matthew, are purely ethical. 

114 Matt. 13: 54-58; Mark 6: 2-6; John 6: 42. 

115 The tradition that in Jesus there was "no form or comeliness" 
[Is. 53: 2]— see Justin, Tryph. 85, 88, 100; Clem. Alex. Pcedag. 3: 1; 
Strom. 6: 17; Orig. c. Cels. 6: 75; Tertull. Be came Christi, 9, adv. Jud. 

61 



LIFE OF JESUS 

from which none in the midst of these kindly and simple 
people could escape. 

Paradise, in fact, would have been brought down to earth, 
had not the ideas of the young Master far transcended the 
level of ordinary goodness, above which it has not yet been 
found possible to raise the human race. The brotherhood 
of men, as sons of God, and the normal consequences result- 
ing from such a conception, were deduced with exquisite 
feeling. Like all the rabbis of the time, Jesus was little 
inclined towards dialectic reasoning, and put his doctrine 
into concise aphorisms, and into forms of expression which 
were at times enigmatical and strange. 116 Some of these 
aphorisms come from the books of the Old Testament. 
Others were the thoughts of more modern sages, especially 
of Antigonus of Soco, Jesus son of Sirach, and Hillel, 
which he learnt, not from learned study, but from their 
constant popular use as proverbs. The synagogue was rich 
in very happily expressed maxims which formed a kind of 
current proverbial literature. 117 Jesus adopted almost all 
this oral teaching, but imbued it with a higher spirit. 118 
Usually exceeding the duties laid down by the Law and 
the prophets, he desired perfection. All the virtues of 

14 — arose from the wash to find realised in him an assumed Messianic 
trait. No traditional portrait of him existed in the earliest centuries (see 
Augustine, De Trin. 8: 4, 5; Irenseus, Adv. hcer. 1, 25: 6.). 

116 The Logia of Matthew bring together many of these maxims in 
the form of long discourses; but their fragmentary character is perceptible 
at the joinings. 

117 Sentences of the Jewish doctors of the time are collected in the 
little book called Pirke Aboth. 

1 1 8 Coincidences will be indicated from time to time, as they may 
occur. It has sometimes been thought that, as the Talmud was compiled 
later than the Gospels, the Jewish editors may have borrowed from 
the Christian ethics. But this is untenable ; for the maxims of the Talmud 
which correspond to passages of the Gospels are fixed in date by the 
names of the doctors to whom they are ascribed, thus disproving the 
notion of such borrowings. 

62 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

humility — forgiveness, charity, abnegation, and self-denial 
— virtues which, with good reason, have been called Chris- 
tian, if by that we mean that they were truly preached by 
Christ, existed in germ in this first teaching. As to justice, 
he was content with repeating the well-known axiom: " All 
things therefore whatsoever ye would that men should do 
unto you, even so do ye also unto them." But this old and 
somewhat selfish wisdom did not satisfy him. 119 He went 
to extremes, and said, " Whosoever smiteth thee on thy right 
cheek, turn to him the other also. And if any man would 
go to law with thee, and take away thy coat, let him have 
thy cloak also." " If thy right eye causeth thee to stumble, 
pluck it out, and cast it from thee." " Love your enemies, 
and pray for them that persecute you." " Judge not, that 
ye be not judged." " Condemn not, and ye shall not be 
condemned." " Be ye merciful, even as your Father is 
merciful." "It is more blessed to give than to receive." 
"Whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and 
whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted." 120 

Concerning alms, pity, good works, kindness, peaceful- 
ness, and complete unselfishness of heart, he had little to 
add to the doctrine of the synagogue. 121 But he placed 

119 Matt. 7: 12; Luke 6: 31. This maxim may be found in the Book 
of Tobit, 4: 16. Hillel constantly appealed to it (Babyl. Talm., Schab- 
bath, 31 a), and declared, like Jesus, that it was a summary of the Law. 

120 Matt. 5: 39, 40; Luke 6: 29: cf. Lamentations 3: 30.— Matt. 5: 29, 
30, and 18: 9; Mark 9: 46.— Matt. 5: 44; Luke 6: 37: cf. Babylonian Tal- 
mud, Schabbath, 88 b; Jmna, 23 a.— Matt. 7: 1; Luke 6: 37: cf. Babyl. 
Talm. Kethuboth, 105 b.— Luke 6: 37; cf. Levit. 19: 18; Prov. 20: 22; 
Eccles. 18: 1-5.— Luke 6: 36; Siphre, 51 b (Sulzbach, 1802).— Repeated in 
Acts 20: 35.— Matt. 23: 12; Luke 14: 11, and 18: 14. Of like spirit 
are the sayings reported by Jerome from the "Gospel of the Hebrews" 
(Comm. in Ephes. 5:4; Ezek. 18; adv. Pelagium, 3:2): cf. Babyl. Talm. 
Erubin. 13 b. 

121 Deut. 24, 25, 26 et seq. Is. 58: 7; Prov. 19: 17; Pirke Aboth, 1; 
Jerusalem Talmud, Peak, 1:4; Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 63 a, 
and Baba kama, 93 a. 

63 



LIFE OF JESUS 

upon them an emphasis full of impressive grace which gave 
the old maxims new life. Morality is not a matter of more 
or less well-expressed principles. The poetry which makes 
the precept loved is more than the precept itself, regarded 
as an abstract truth. It cannot be denied that these max- 
ims, borrowed by Jesus from his predecessors, produce quite 
a different effect in the Gospel from that in the ancient 
Law, in the Pirhe Aboth, or in the Talmud. It is neither 
the ancient Law nor the Talmud which has conquered and 
transformed the world. Only slightly original in itself — if 
by that we mean that it might be reconstructed almost en- 
tirely by the aid of more ancient maxims — the morality of 
the Gospels remains nevertheless the highest creation of the 
human conscience, the most beautiful code of perfect life 
that any moralist has ever framed. 

Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law, but it is clear 
that he saw its insufficiency and let it be seen that he did so. 
He never ceased to repeat that more must be done than the 
ancient sages had commanded. He forbade the least harsh 
word; he prohibited divorce, and all oath-taking; he in- 
veighed against revenge; he condemned usury; he consid- 
ered sensual desire as criminal as adultery; he desired the 
universal forgiveness of injuries. 122 The motive on which 
he based these maxims of exalted charity was always the 
same — " That ye may be sons of your Father which is in 
heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and the 
good and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. For if 
ye love them that love you, what reward have ye ? do not 
even the publicans the same ? And if ye salute your breth- 
ren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the 

122 Matt. 5: 22, 31, 32 (cf. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 22 a), 
33-37, 38^2 (less formally forbidden in Deut. 15: 7, 8, and allowed by 
custom, as in Luke 7: 41-43); 27: 28 (cf. Talmud, Masseket Kalla: ed. 
Furth, 1793, 34 b); 5: 23-26. 

64 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

Gentiles the same? Ye therefore shall be perfect, as your 
heavenly Father is perfect." 123 

A pure worship, a religion without priests and external 
observances, resting wholly on the feelings of the heart, on 
the imitation of God, 124 on the close communion of the con- 
science with the heavenly Father, were the results of these 
principles. Jesus never shrank from this bold conclusion, 
which made him an indomitable revolutionary in the very 
heart of Judaism. Why should there be mediators between 
man and his Father? Since God only sees the heart, to 
what good end those purifications, those observances relat- 
ing to the body alone? 125 Even tradition, a thing so sacred 
to the Jews, is nothing compared with pure feeling. The 
hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who, as they prayed, turned 
their heads to see if they were observed, who gave their 
alms with ostentation, and put marks upon their garments, 
that they might be recognised as pious men — all these affec- 
tations of false devotion roused his disgust. " They have 
their reward," said he; " but when thou doest alms, let not 
thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth, that thine 
alms may be in secret, and thy Father, which seeth in secret, 
shall recompense thee." 126 " And when ye pray, ye shall 
not be as the hypocrites : for they love to stand and pray in 
the synagogues, and in the corners of the streets, that they 
may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have re- 
ceived their reward. But thou, when thou prayest, enter 
into thine inner chamber; and having shut thy door, pray 
to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father, which 

123 Matt. 5: 45-48; cf. Lev. 11: 44, and 19 : 2; Ephes. 5: 1; and Plato's 
6poiw<rts t& Qe<a. 

124 Comp. Philo, De migr. Abrah. 23, 24 ;De vita contempt., through- 
out. 

125 Matt. 15: 11-20. Mark 7: 5-8. 

126 Matt. 6: 1^. (cf. Eccles. 17: 18, and 29: 15; Babyl. Talm. Chagiga, 
5 a, and Baba bathra, 9 b). 

65 



LIFE OF JESUS 

seeth in secret, shall recompense thee. And in praying, use 
not vain repetitions, as the Gentiles do: for they think that 
they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not there- 
fore like unto them, for your Father knoweth what things 
ye have need of before ye ask him " (Matt. 6: 5-8). 

He affected none of the external signs of asceticism, con- 
tenting himself with praying, or rather meditating, upon 
the mountains and in the lonely places, where man has 
always sought God. 127 This lofty idea of the relations of 
man with God, of which so few souls, even after him, have 
been capable, was summed up in a prayer which at that time 
he taught to his disciples : 128 

" Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name ; 
thy kingdom come; thy will be done as in heaven so on 
earth. Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us 
our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring 
us not into temptation ; but deliver us from the evil one." 129 
He especially insisted upon the idea that the heavenly 
Father knows better than we what is needful, and that 
we almost sin against him in asking him for this or that 
particular thing (Luke 11: 5-13). 

In this Jesus only carried to their logical conclusion the 
great principles which Judaism had founded, but which 
the official classes of the nation tended more and more to 
despise. The Greek and Roman prayers were almost 
always mere egoistical verbiage. Never had pagan priest 
said to the faithful, "If therefore thou art offering thy gift 
at the altar, and there rememberest that thy brother hath 
aught against thee ; leave there thy gift before the altar, and 
go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then 

127 Matt. 14: 23. Luke 4: 42; 5: 16; 6: 12. 

128 Matt. 6: 9-13; Luke 11: 2-4; cf. Babylonian Talmud, Berakoth, 
29 b, 30 a, especially the expression DVDfcaP^DK. 

129 That is, the Evil Spirit. (See discussion in Pirke Aboth.; Cam- 
bridge (Eng.), Univ. Press, 1877, pp. 142-145.) 

66 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

come and offer thy gift " (Matt. 5 : 23, 24). Alone in antiq- 
uity, the Jewish prophets, more especially Isaiah, had, in 
their hatred for priestcraft, caught a glimpse of the true 
nature of the worship which man owes to God. " To what 
purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith 
the Lord. I am full of the burnt-offerings of rams, and the 
fat of fed beasts; and I delight not in the blood of bul- 
locks, or of lambs, or of he-goats. . . . Incense is an abom- 
ination unto me . . . your hands are full of blood . . . 
cease to do evil, learn to do well, seek judgment/' 130 In 
later times certain doctors, Simeon the Just, 131 Jesus son 
of Sirach, 132 and Hillel, 133 almost reached the final position 
and declared that the Law was, in brief, righteousness. 
Philo, in the Judaeo-Egyptian world, attained, at the same 
time as Jesus, ideas of high moral sanctity, the consequence 
of which was indifference to the observances of the Law. 134 
Shemaia and Abtalion also proved themselves more than 
once to be very liberal casuists. 135 Rabbi Johanan ere long 
placed works of mercy above even the study of the Law. 136 
It was however Jesus alone who proclaimed the principle 
effectively. Never has there been any one less a priest than 
Jesus, never a greater enemy to forms, which stifle religion 
under the pretext of protecting it. In this we are all his 
disciples and his successors; by this he laid the eternal 
foundation-stone of true religion; and, if religion be essen- 
tial to mankind, by this he has merited the divine rank which 
the world has accorded him. An absolutely new idea, the 

130 Isaiah 1: 11-17; 58. Hos. 6: 6. Mic. 6: 6-8. Mai. 1: 10, 11. 
%31 PirkeAboth.,l:%. 

132 Eccles. 35:1 et seq. 

133 Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim, 6: 1; Babylonian Talmud, id. 66 a, 
and Schabbath, 31 a. 

134 Quod Deus immul. 1, 2; De Abrah. 22; Quis rer. div. hares, 13, 
55, 58; De Prof. 7, 8; Quod omnis probus liber, and De vita contemplativa. 

135 Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim, 67 b. 

136 Jerusalem Talmud, Peah, 1: 1. 

67 



LIFE OF JESUS 

conception of a worship founded on purity of heart, and 
on the brotherhood of humanity, through him entered into 
the world — an idea so lofty that the Christian Church had 
necessarily to fall short of it, an idea which, in our days, 
only a few minds are capable of following. 

An exquisite feeling for nature furnished him at every 
moment with vivid images. Sometimes the pointed terse- 
ness, which we call wit, adorned his aphorisms; at other 
times their strength lay in the happy use of popular 
proverbs. " How wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me cast 
out the mote out of thine eye; and lo, the beam is in thine 
own eye? Thou hypocrite, cast out first the beam out of 
thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out 
the mote out of thy brother's eye." 137 

These lessons, long hidden in the heart of the young 
Master, had already brought a few disciples round him. 
The spirit of the time was favourable to small churches ; it 
was the epoch of the Essenes or Therapeutae. Rabbis, each 
having his distinctive teaching, Shemaia, Abtalion, Hillel, 
Shammai, Judas the Gaulonite, Gamaliel, and many others, 
whose maxims form the Talmud, 138 sprang up on every side. 
Very little was written; the Jewish doctors of this period 
did not write books; everything was communicated by con- 
versations, and in public teaching to which they sought to 
give a form that would make it remembered. 139 The day on 
which the young carpenter of Nazareth first began to pro- 
claim these maxims — maxims for the most part already 
widely circulated, but, thanks to him, destined to regenerate 
the world — was therefore no striking event. It was only 
one rabbi more (the most fascinating of all, it is true) and 

137 Matt. 7: 4, 5; Luke 6: 41, 42. Cf. Babylonian Talmud, Baba 
bathra, 15 b; Erachin, 16 b. 

138 See especially Pirlce Aboth, chap. 1. 

138 The Talmud, which sums up this body of teaching, hardly began 
to be put in writing earlier than the second Christian century. 

68 



FIRST TEACHINGS OF JESUS 

around him some young men, eager to hear him, and thirst- 
ing for knowledge of the unknown. It requires time to 
overcome the indifference of men. As yet there were no 
Christians ; but true Christianity was founded, and certainly 
it was never more perfect than at this first moment of its 
existence. Jesus added nothing of a lasting nature to it 
afterwards. Indeed, in one sense, he compromised it; for 
sacrifices must be made for any idea to succeed; we never 
come unscathed from the battle of life. 

To conceive the good, in fact, does not suffice; we must 
make it triumph amongst men. To accomplish this, less 
immaculate paths must be followed. Certainly, if the 
Gospel were limited to some chapters of Matthew and 
Luke, it would be more perfect and would not now be 
open to so many criticisms; but without miracles would it 
have converted the world? Had Jesus died at the period 
we have now reached in his career, there would not have 
been a single page in his life to wound us; but, while 
greater in the eyes of God, he would have remained un- 
known to men; he would have been lost in the multitude 
of great unknown spirits, who are the best of all spirits; 
the truth would not have been promulgated, and the world 
would not have profited from the immense moral grandeur 
with which his Father had endowed him. Jesus son of 
Sirach, and Hillel had uttered aphorisms almost as lofty as 
those of Jesus. But Hillel will never be accounted the 
true founder of Christianity. In ethics, as in art, precept 
is nothing, practice is everything. The idea which is hidden 
in a picture by Raphael is of little moment; it is only the 
picture itself which counts. So too in ethics, truth is only 
of value when it becomes more than a mere sentiment, and 
it does not attain its highest worth until realised in the 
world as fact. Men of indifferent morality have written 
very good maxims. Very virtuous men, on the other hand, 

69 



LIFE OF JESUS 

have done nothing to perpetuate the tradition of virtue in 
the world. The palm is to him who has been mighty both 
in words and in works, who has discerned the good, and, at 
the price of his blood, has made it triumph. Jesus, from 
this dual point of view, is without equal; his glory retains 
its integrity, and will ever know renewal. 



70 



CHAPTER VI 

John the Baptist 

An extraordinary man, whose position, for lack of docu- 
mentary evidence, remains for us to some extent enigmati- 
cal, appeared about this time, and unquestionably had some 
intercourse with Jesus. This intercourse tended somewhat 
to make the young prophet of Nazareth deviate from his 
path; but it suggested many important additions to his 
religious teaching, and, at all events, lent very powerful 
authority to his disciples in preaching faith in their Master 
to a certain class of Jews. 

About the year 28 of our era (the fifteenth year of the 
reign of Tiberius) there spread through the whole of Pales- 
tine the reputation of a certain Johanan, or John, a young 
ascetic full of fervour and passion. John was of the 
priestly race, 140 and born, it would seem, at Juttah, near 
Hebron, or at Hebron itself. 141 Hebron, the patriarchal 
city par excellence, situated close to the desert of Judaea, 
and within a few hours' journey of the great desert of 
Arabia, was at that period what it is now — one of the bul- 
warks of Semitic ideas in their austerest form. From his 
childhood John was a Nazir — that is to say, bound down 
by vow to certain abstinences (Luke 1: 15). The desert, 
which was, so to speak, his environment, attracted him early 
in life (Luke 1 : 80). There he led the life of an Indian 

140 Luke 1: 5; see also a citation from the Ebionite Gospel, preserved 
by Epiphanius {Adv. hcer. 30: 13). 

141 Luke 1: 39. It has been suggested, and is not unlikely, that in the 
"city of Juda" here mentioned we find the town of Juttah (Josh. 15: 55; 
21: 16). Robinson (Biblical Researches, 1: 494; 2: 206) found this 
Juttah, still bearing the same name, two short hours to the south of 
Hebron. 

71 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Yogi, clad only in skins or stuffs of camels' hair, and having 
for his food locusts and wild honey. 142 A certain number 
of disciples had gathered around him, sharing his life and 
meditating on his stern doctrine. We might imagine our- 
selves transported to the banks of the Ganges, if peculiar 
traits did not show us in this recluse the last descendant of 
the great prophets of Israel. 

From the time when the Jewish nation had begun to 
be stricken with a kind of despair by reflecting upon its 
destiny, the popular imagination had eagerly reverted to 
the ancient prophets. Now, of all the men of the past, 
the remembrance of whom came like the dreams of a 
troubled night to awaken and excite the people, the greatest 
was Elias. This giant among prophets, in his rude retreat 
at Carmel, sharing the life of wild beasts, dwelling in the 
hollows of the rocks, whence he came forth like a thunder- 
bolt, to make and unmake kings, had become by successive 
transformations a kind of superhuman being, sometimes 
visible, sometimes invisible, and as one who had not known 
death. It was generally believed that Elias would return 
and restore Israel. 143 The austere life which he had led, 
the terrible memories he had left behind him — memories 
which still weigh heavily upon the East 144 — that darkly 
imagined figure which, even in our own time, causes terror 
and death — all this cycle of legends charged with ven- 
geance and fear, vividly impressed men's minds, and 
stamped, as with a birthmark, all the creations of the 
popular imagination. Whoever aspired to act powerfully 

1 42 Matt. 3:4. Mark 1:6; fragment of the Ebionite Gospel in Epipha- 
nius, Adv. hcer. 30: 13. 

143 Mai. 3: 23, 24. Eccles. 48: 10. Matt. 16: 14; 17: 10-13. Mark 
6: 15; 8: 28; 9: 10-13. Luke 9: 8, 19. John 1: 21, 25. 

144 The ferocious Abdallah, pasha of St. Jean d'Acre, had nearly died 
of fright at having seen him in a dream, standing upright upon his 
mountain. In Christian churches he is seen in pictures surrounded by 
severed heads; and Moslem believers live in awe of him. 

72 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

upon the people had to imitate Elias; and, as solitary life 
had been his essential characteristic, they were wont to con- 
ceive " the man of God " as a hermit. They imagined that 
all holy men had had their days of penitence, of solitude, 
and of austerity. 145 Withdrawal to the desert thus became 
the condition of high destinies and their prelude. 

No doubt this thought of imitation had greatly exercised 
John's mind. The idea of anchorite life, so opposed to the 
spirit of the ancient Jewish people, and to which vows, 
such as those of the Nazirs and the Rechabites, had no re- 
semblance, was spreading throughout Judaea. The Essenes, 
or Therapeutae, were grouped near the birthplace of John, 
on the eastern shores of the Dead Sea. 146 Abstinence from 
animal food, wine, and sexual intercourse was regarded 
as the novitiate of prophets. 147 It was imagined that 
the chiefs of sects ought to be recluses, having rules and 
institutions of their own, like the founders of religious 
orders. Some of the teachers of the young were also 
anchorites, somewhat resembling the spiritual instructors 
(gurus) of Brahminism. Indeed, might there not be in 
this a remote influence of the Indian silent sages (munis) ? 
Perhaps some of these wandering Buddhist monks who 
overran the world, as did the first Franciscans in later 
times, preaching by their deeds, and converting people who 
did not know their language, might have turned their steps 
towards Judaea, as they certainly did in the direction of 
Syria and Babylon. 148 On this point we are ignorant. 
Babylon had for some time really been a home of Bud- 

145 Ascension of Isaiah, 2: 9-11. 

146 Pliny, Hist. Nat. 5: 17; Epiphan. Adv. hcer. 19: 1, 2; Saulcy, 
Voyage autour de la mer Morte, 1 : 142 et seq. 

147 Daniel 1: 12-17; 10: 2, 3. Enoch 83: 2; 85: 3. 4 Esdras 9: 24, 26; 
12:51. 

148 1 have developed this hint in the Hist, gener. des langues Semi- 
tiques, 3, 4: 1; Journal Asiatique, February and March, 1856. 
73 



LIFE OF JESUS 

dhism. Budasp (Bodhisattva) was reputed to be a wise 
Chaldean, and the founder of Sabeism. Sabeism was, 
as its etymology indicates, baptism 1 * 9 — that is to say, the 
religion of many baptisms, and the source of the sect, still 
existing, called " Christians of St. John," or Mendaites, 
which the Arabs term el Mogtasila, " the Baptists." 150 It 
is very difficult to unravel these vague analogies. The sects 
floating between Judaism, Christianity, Baptism, and Sabe- 
ism, which were to be found in the region beyond the 
Jordan during the early centuries of our era, 151 by reason 
of the confused accounts of them which have come down 
to us, present a most singular problem to criticism. In any 
case it may be considered that many of the external prac- 
tices of John, of the Essenes, 152 and of the Jewish spiritual 
teachers of this period were derived from influences then 
but recently received from the far East. The fundamental 
practice which characterised the sect of John and gave it 
its name, has always had its centre in lower Chaldea, and 
there constitutes a religion which has survived to the 
present day. 

This practice was baptism, or total immersion. Religious 
ablutions were already familiar to the Jewish, as they were 
to all other Eastern religions. 153 Amongst the Essenes they 

149 The Aramaean verb saba, origin of the name "Sabian," is equiva- 
lent to baptize (fiairrifa ). 

150 1 have discussed this more at length in the Journal Asiatique, 
Nov.-Dec, 1853; Aug.-Sept., 1855. It is to be remarked that the 
Elkesaites, a Sabaean (or Baptist) sect, occupied nearly the same region 
as the Essenes — the eastern shore of the Dead Sea — and were confounded 
with them. (Epiphanius Adv. hwr. 19: 1, 2, 4; 30: 16, 17; 53: 1, 2. 
Philosophumena, 9, 3: 15, 16; 10, 20: 29.) 

151 See notices by Epiphanius of the Essenes, Hemerobaptists, Naza- 
renes, Ossseans, Nazarseans, Ebionites, Sampsaeans (Adv. hcer. 1:2), and 
by the author of the Philosophumena on the Elkesaites, 9: 10. 

152 Epiphanius ibid., 19, 30, 53. 

153 Mark 7: 4; Josephus, Antiq., 18, 5: 2; Justin, Tryph. 17, 29, 80; 
Epiphanius, Adv. hair. 17. 

74 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

had had a peculiar development. 154 Baptism had become 
a usual ceremony on the reception of proselytes into the 
bosom of the Jewish religion, a sort of initiatory rite. 155 
Never before John the Baptist, however, had either this im- 
portance or this form been given to immersion. John had 
selected the scene of his activity in that part of the desert 
of Judaea which is in the vicinity of the Dead Sea. 156 On 
the occasions when he administered baptism he repaired to 
the banks of the Jordan (Luke 3:3) either to Bethany or 
Bethabara, 157 upon the Eastern shore, probably opposite 
Jericho, or to a place called Mnon, or " the Fountains," 158 
near Salim, where there was much water. 159 Considerable 
multitudes, especially of the tribe of Judah, hastened to the 
place to be baptised by him. 160 Thus in a few months he 
became one of the most influential men in Judaea, a man 
whom the world could not afford to ignore. 

The people took him for a prophet, 161 and many imagined 

154 Josephus, Wars, 2, 8: 5, 7, 8, 13. 

155 Mishna, Pesachim, 8: 8. Babyl. Talmud, Jebamoih, 46 b; Keri- 
thuth, 9 a; Aboda zara, 57 a. Masseket Gerim (ed. Kirchheim, 1851), 
38^0. 

156 Matt. 3:1; Mark 1:4. 

157 John 1: 28; 3: 26. All the ancient MSS. have "Bethany "; but as 
no Bethany is known hereabout, Origen (in Joann. 6: 24) proposes 
"Bethabara," a correction widely accepted. The two names are alike 
in meaning, seeming to indicate a ferry. 

158 "^Eiion" is the Chaldsean plural cenawan, "springs." 

159 John 3: 23. The situation is doubtful. The Synoptics uniformly 
place the scene of John's baptism on the bank of the Jordan (Matt. 3:6; 
Mark 1:5; Luke 3:3); but the circumstance emphasized in the Fourth 
Gospel, that " there was much water there," is void of sense if we suppose 
the spot to be close to the river. Taking together verses 22, 23 of John 
3, and verses 3, 4 of chap. 4, we are led, besides, to think that Salim 
was in Judaea. It seems that near the ruin Ramet-el-Khalil, near Hebron, 
there is a locality which meets all these conditions (Sepp, Jerusalem und 
das Heilige Land, Schaffhausen, 1863, 1: 520 et seq). Jerome would 
place Salim far to the north, near Beth-Shean or Scythopolis; but Robin- 
son (BibL Res., 3: 333) could find nothing there to justify this claim. 

160 Mark 1:5: Josephus, Antiq., 18, 5:2. 

161 Matt. 14: 5; 21: 26. 

75 



LIFE OF JESUS 

that it was Elijah who had risen again. 162 Belief in such 
resurrections was widely spread; 163 it was thought that 
God would raise from the tomb certain of the ancient 
prophets to guide Israel toward her final destiny. 164 Others 
held John to be the Messiah himself, although he made no 
such pretension. 165 The priests and the scribes, who were 
opposed to this revival of prophetism, and ever hostile to 
enthusiasts, despised him. But the popularity of the Bap- 
tist impressed them, and they dared not speak against 
him. 166 It was a victory gained by popular sentiment over 
priestly aristocracy. When the chief priests were forced 
to declare themselves explicitly on this point, they were 
very much embarrassed (Matt. 21: 25,26). 

Baptism with John was only a sign calculated to impress 
the minds of the people and to prepare them for some 
great movement. There can be no doubt that he was pos- 
sessed in the highest degree with hope for the coming of 
the Messiah. " Repent ye," he said, " for the kingdom of 
heaven is at hand" (Matt. 3:2). He announced a great 
wrath to come, that is to say, terrible catastrophes which 
were about to occur, and declared that even now the axe 
was laid upon the root of the tree, and that the tree would 
soon be cast into the lire. He represented the Messiah 
with a fan in his hand, gathering the good wheat into his 
garner and burning the chaff. Repentance, of which bap- 
tism was the sign, alms-giving, and moral reformation, 167 
were in John's view the great means of preparation for the 
impending events. We do not know exactly in what light 
he conceived of these events; but it is certain that he 

162 Matt. 11: 14; Mark 6: 15; John 1: 21. 

163 Matt. 14: 2; Luke 9: 8. 

164 See p. 147, note 2. 

165 Luke 3: 15-17; John 1: 20. 

166 Matt. 21: 25, 26; Luke 7: 30. 

167 Luke 3: 11-14; Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 5: 2. 

76 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

preached with much force against the same adversaries as 
did Jesus, against rich priests, the Pharisees, the doctors, 
in one word, against official Judaism; and that, like Jesus, 
he was especially welcomed by the despised classes. 168 He 
thought nothing of the title " son of Abraham," and said 
that God could raise up sons to Abraham from the stones 
of the highway (Matt. 3:9). It does not appear that he 
possessed even the germ of the great idea which caused the 
triumph of Jesus, the conception of a pure religion; but he 
powerfully served this idea in substituting a private rite 
for the legal ceremonies in which priests were necessary, 
as the mediaeval flagellants were the precursors of the 
reformation, by depriving the official clergy of the monop- 
oly of the sacraments and of absolution. The general tone 
of his sermons was severe and stern. The expressions with 
which he assailed his opponents appear to have been most 
violent. His preaching was one harsh continuous in- 
vective. 169 It is probable that he did not remain a stranger 
to politics. Josephus, who, through his teacher Banou was 
brought into almost direct contact with John, cautiously 
suggests as much, 170 and the catastrophe which put an end 
to John's life seems to imply it. His disciples led a very 
austere life (Matt. 9: 14), fasted often and affected a sad 
demeanour full of disquietude. At times we catch a glimpse 
of community of possessions, and the theory that the rich 
man is bound to share all that he has with the poor. 171 
Already the poor man appeared as the one who would be 
specially benefited by the kingdom of God. 

168 Matt. 21 : 32. Luke 3 : 12-14. 

169 Matt. 3:7. Luke 3: 7. 

170 Antiquities, 18, 5:2. It is to be noted that when Josephus speaks 
of the secret and more or less revolutionary doctrines of his countrymen, 
he hides every hint of messianic beliefs, and, not to offend the Romans, 
spreads over these doctrines a wash of commonplace, which makes all 
the heads of Jewish sects seem moral lecturers, or Stoics. 

171 Luke 3: 11 (weak authority). 

77 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Although the centre of the Baptist's action was Judaea, 
his fame soon penetrated to Galilee and reached Jesus, 
who, by his first discourses, had already gathered about him 
a small circle of hearers. As yet possessing little authority, 
and doubtless impelled by the desire of seeing a teacher 
whose teaching had so much in common with his own ideas, 
Jesus left Galilee and repaired with his little group of 
disciples to John. 172 The new-comers had themselves 
baptised like everyone else. John welcomed the group of 
Galilean disciples and had no objection to their remaining 
distinct from his own. Both teachers were young; they 
had many ideas in common; they loved one another, and 
publicly vied with each other in kindly feeling. At the first 
glance, such a fact surprises us in John the Baptist, and 
we are tempted to call it in question. Humility has never 
been a feature of strong Jewish souls. It would seem as 
though a man of such stubborn character, a kind of per- 
petually irritated Lamennais, would be very passionate, 
and suffer neither rivalry nor half adhesion. But this man- 
ner of viewing things rests upon a false conception of the 
personality of John. We imagine him as a man of ripened 

173 Matt. 3: 13-17; Mark 1: 9-11; Luke 3: 21, 22; John 1: 29-34, and 
3: 22-24. The Synoptics represent Jesus as having come to John before 
assuming any public part (comp. Epiphanius, Adv. hcer. 30: 13, 14; 
Justin, Tryph. 88). But if it is true, as they say, that John at once recog- 
nised and warmly welcomed him, we must suppose that Jesus was already 
a teacher of some repute. The Fourth Gospel brings him twice to John, — 
first, when he is still obscure; later, with a company of disciples. Without 
taking into account the exact journeyings of Jesus, — which cannot be 
fixed, owing to contradictions in the documents and to the disregard of 
the evangelists for precision in such things, — or denying that Jesus may 
have gone to John before he was yet publicly known, we accept the ac- 
count (John 3: 22-24) that he had already a regular school before sub- 
mitting to John's baptism. The earlier portion of the Fourth Gospel 
is made up of separate notes strung together. The strict order of time 
which they seem to follow comes from the writer's fondness for the 
appearance of precision. (See above Introd., p. 61.) 

78 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

years ; he was, on the contrary, of the same age as Jesus, 173 
and very young according to the ideas of the time. 174 In 
mental development he was the brother and not the father 
of Jesus. The two young enthusiasts, full of the same 
hopes and the same hatreds, were able to make common 
cause and to lend each other mutual support. Certainly an 
aged teacher, seeing a man without celebrity approach, and 
maintain an independent attitude toward him, would have 
rebelled; there are few examples of a leader of a school 
receiving his future successor with warmth. But youth is 
capable of any sacrifice, and it may be admitted that John, 
having recognised in Jesus a spirit akin to his own, accepted 
him without any personal reservation. These friendly re- 
lations afterward became the starting-point of a whole 
system developed by the evangelists, which consisted in 
giving the divine mission of Jesus the primary basis of the 
witness borne by John. Such was the degree of authority 
won by the Baptist, that it was not deemed possible to find 
in the world a better guarantee. But far from John abdi- 
cating in favour of Jesus, Jesus, during all the time that he 
spent with him, recognised him as his superior, and only 
timidly developed his own individual genius. 

It seems in fact that, despite his profound originality, 
Jesus, for some weeks at least, was the imitator of John. 
His way was still dark before him. At all times more- 
over Jesus yielded much to opinion, and adopted many 
things which were not in accord with his own ideas, or 
for which he cared little, merely because they were popu- 
lar; but these accessories never injured his leading princi- 
ple, and were always subordinated to it. Baptism had been 

17 * We accept here the testimony of Luke (chap. 1), though all the 
details — in particular those concerning the kinship of John and Jesus — 
belong to legend. 

174 See John 8: 57. 

79 



LIFE OF JESUS 

brought by John into very great favour; Jesus thought 
himself obliged to follow his example; therefore he bap- 
tised, and his disciples baptised also. 175 No doubt they 
accompanied the ceremony with preaching similar to that 
of John. The Jordan was thus covered on all sides with 
Baptists, whose preaching was more or less successful. 
The pupil soon equalled the master, and baptism at his 
hands was much sought after. There was on this point 
some j ealousy among the disciples ; 176 the followers of 
John came to complain to him of the growing success of 
the young Galilean, whose baptism, they thought, would 
soon supplant his own. But both teachers remained above 
such pettiness. According to one tradition, 177 it was while in 
John's company that Jesus formed the group of his most 
noted disciples. The superiority of John was too indis- 
putable for Jesus, who was as yet little known, to think 
of contesting it. Jesus only wished to grow up under 
John's protection ; and he believed himself obliged, in order 
to gain the multitude's attention, to employ the external 
means which had given John such astonishing success. 
When he began to preach again after John's arrest, the 
first words put into his mouth are but the repetition of one 
of the Baptist's familiar phrases. 178 Many other of John's 
expressions may be found repeated word for word in the 
discourses of Jesus. 179 The two schools appear to have 
long lived on good terms with each other ; 18 ° and after the 
death of John, Jesus, as his faithful friend, was one of 
the first to be informed of the event. 181 

176 John 3: 22-26; 4: 1, 2. The parenthesis of verse 2 seems to be a 
later comment, or perhaps a scruple of the writer, who corrects himself. 

176 John 3: 26; 4: 1. 

177 John 1: 35-37; confirmed by Acts 1: 21, 22. 

178 Matt. 3: 2; 4: 17. 

179 Matt. 3:7; 12: 34; 23: 33. 

180 Matt. 11:2-13. 

181 Matt. 14: 12. 

80 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

John was soon cut short in his prophetic career. Like 
the ancient Jewish prophets, he was, in the highest degree, 
a censor of the established authorities. 182 The extreme dar- 
ing with which he expressed himself upon their conduct 
could not fail to involve him in trouble. In Judaea, John 
does not appear to have been molested by Pilate; but in 
Perea, beyond the Jordan, he passed into the domain of 
Antipas. This tyrant was ill at ease at the political leaven 
which was so little concealed by John in his preaching. 
There was something suspicious about these great assem- 
blages of men gathered around the Baptist by religious and 
patriotic enthusiasm. 183 A purely personal grievance was 
also added to these motives of state, and rendered the 
austere censor's death inevitable. 

One of the most strongly marked characters of this 
tragical family of the Herods was Herodias, grand- 
daughter of Herod the Great, a violent, ambitious, and 
passionate woman, who detested Judaism and despised its 
laws. 184 She had been married, probably against her own 
inclinations, to her uncle Herod, son of Mariamne, 185 who 
had been disinherited by Herod the Great, 186 and had never 
played any public part. The subordinate position of her 
husband, as compared with that of other members of the 
family, gave her no peace; she determined to be sovereign 
at whatever cost. 187 Antipas was the instrument of whom 
she made use. This man of weak will having fallen vio- 
lently in love with her, promised to marry her, and to 
repudiate his first wife, daughter of Hareth, king of Petra, 

182 Luke 3: 19. 

183 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 5: 2. 

184 Ibid, 5: 4. 

185 In Matt. 14: 3 and Mark 6: 17 lie is called Philip; but this is certainly 
an error (Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 5: 1, 4). Philip's wife was Salome, 
daughter of Herodias. 

188 Josephus, Antiquities, 17, 4: 2. 

187 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 7: 1, 2; Wars, 2, 9: 6. 

81 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and emir of the neighbouring tribes of Perea. The 
Arabian princess, receiving a warning of this project, re- 
solved to fly. Concealing her plan, she pretended that she 
wished to make a journey to Machero, in her father's 
territory, and had herself taken thither by the officers of 
Antipas. 188 

Makaur, 189 or Machero, was a colossal fortress, built by 
Alexander Jannaeus and restored by Herod, in one of the 
most abrupt valleys (wddys) to the east of the Dead Sea. 190 
It was a wild and desolate country, abounding in strange 
legends, and believed to be haunted by demons. 191 The 
fortress was just on the boundary of the countries of 
Hareth and of Antipas. At that time it was in the pos- 
session of Hareth. The latter, having been warned, had 
had everything prepared for the flight of his daughter, 
who was conducted from tribe to tribe to Petra. 

The almost incestuous union 192 of Antipas and Herodias 
then took place. The Jewish laws of marriage were a 
constant stone of offence between the irreligious family of 
the Herods and the strict Jews. 193 As the members of that 
numerous and somewhat isolated dynasty were obliged to 
marry amongst themselves, frequent violations of the limits 
prescribed by the Law took place. John, in severely at- 
tacking Antipas, echoed the general feeling. 194 This was 
more than enough to make the latter decide to follow up 
his suspicions. He caused the Baptist to be arrested, and 
ordered him to be imprisoned in the fortress of Machero, 

188 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 5: 1. 

180 This f orm occurs in the Jerusalem Talmud (Schebiit, 9: 4) and in 
the Jonathan and Jerusalem Targums (Num. 22: 35). 

190 Now Makaur, above the wadi Zerka-Main (Vignes' map of the 
Dead Sea; Paris, 1865). 

191 Josephus, Wars, 7, 6: 1, 2. 
192 Levit. 18: 16. 

193 Josephus, Antiquities, 15, 7: 10. 
1,4 Matt. 14: 4; Mark 6: 18; Luke 3: 19. 

82 



JOHN THE BAPTIST 

which he had probably seized after the departure of the 
daughter of Hareth. 195 

Antipas, who was more timid than cruel, did not desire 
to put him to death. According to certain accounts, he 
feared a popular sedition (Matt. 14:5). According to 
another version, 196 he had taken pleasure in listening to the 
prisoner, and these interviews had cast him into great per- 
plexities. It is certain that the captivity was prolonged, 
and that John, from the depths of his prison, still exercised 
a wide influence. 197 He corresponded with his disciples, 
and we shall see that he once more had relations with Jesus. 
His faith that the advent of the Messiah was at hand only 
grew firmer; he attentively followed the movements outside 
his prison walls, and sought to discover in them signs that 
favoured the accomplishment of the hopes on which he had 
lived. 

185 Josephus, Antiquities, 18, 5: 2. 

198 Mark 6: 20 (reading riiropei for brolei ; cf. Luke 9: 7, Sniiropti). 

187 An oriental prison has no cells. The convict, with feet fettered, 
is kept in sight in a court or open space, where he talks freely with the 
passers-by. 



83 



CHAPTER VII 

The Kingdom of God 

Up to the arrest of John, which may be approximately 
dated in the summer of the year 29, Jesus did not leave 
the neighbourhood of the Dead Sea and the Jordan. A 
sojourn in the wilderness of Judaea was generally consid- 
ered as a preparation for great things, as a sort of " re- 
treat " before public action. In this Jesus followed the 
example of others, and passed forty days with no other 
companions than wild animals, keeping a rigorous fast. 
The disciples greatly exercised their imaginative powers 
concerning this sojourn. In popular belief the desert was 
reputed to be the abode of demons. 198 There exist in the 
world few regions more desolate, more God-forsaken, more 
shut out from life, than the rocky declivity which forms 
the western shore of the Dead Sea. It was believed that 
during the time which Jesus spent in this land of terror, 
he had passed through terrible trials; that Satan had as- 
sailed him with illusions, and tempted him with seductive 
promises; and that afterwards, to reward him for his vic- 
tory, angels had come to minister to him. 199 

It was probably on emerging from the wilderness that 
Jesus learnt of the arrest of John the Baptist. He no 
longer had any reason to prolong his stay in a country 

198 Tobit8:3;Lukell:24. 

5" Matt. 4: 1-11; Mark 1: 12-13; Luke 4: 1-13. It is true that the 
striking likeness of these accounts to the legends of the Vendidad (fare. 
19) and the Lalitaristara (chaps. 17, 18, 21) might lead us to regard this 
stay in the desert as only a myth; but the lean, curt account of Mark, 
here plainly reflecting the earliest tradition, points to a real fact, which 
later made the basis of legendary expansion. 

84 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

which was half foreign to him. Perhaps also he feared 
being involved in the severities exercised towards John, 
and had no wish to expose himself, at a time at which, 
considering the little celebrity he possessed, his death could 
in no way serve the progress of his ideas. He returned to 
Galilee, 200 his true home, ripened by a great experience and 
having by intercourse with a great man of very different 
nature acquired full consciousness of his own originality. 

On the whole, the influence of John had been more in- 
jurious than useful to Jesus. It checked his development; 
for everything leads us to believe that when he descended 
towards the Jordan he had higher conceptions than those 
of John, and that his temporary inclination to baptism was 
a concession on his part. Perhaps if the Baptist, whose 
authority it would have been difficult for him to avoid, had 
remained at liberty, Jesus would not have been able to 
throw off the yoke of external rites and ceremonies, and, in 
all probability, would have continued to be an unknown 
Jewish sectary; for the world would not have abandoned 
its old ceremonies merely for others of a different kind. It 
has been by the attractive power of a religion, free from 
all external forms, that Christianity has won lofty minds. 
When the Baptist was imprisoned his school soon dwindled 
away, and Jesus was once more left to take up his own 
peculiar work. The only things that, in some measure, he 
owed to John were lessons in preaching and popular action. 
From that time indeed he preached with much greater 
power, and made the multitude feel his authority. 201 

It seems too that his sojourn with John had, less by the 
influence of the Baptist than by the natural progress of his 
own thought, greatly ripened his ideas on " the kingdom 
of heaven." Henceforth his watchword is the " good tid- 

200 Matt. 4: 12; Mark 1: 14; Luke 4: 14; John 4: 3. 

201 Matt. 7: 29; Mark 1: 22; Luke 4: 32. 

85 



LIFE OF JESUS 

ings," the proclamation that the kingdom of God is at hand 
(Mark 1: 14, 15). Jesus is no longer merely a delightful 
moralist striving to express sublime lessons in short and 
vivid aphorisms; he is the transcendent revolutionary who 
seeks to regenerate the world from its very foundation, and 
to establish upon earth the ideal which he has conceived. 
" To await the kingdom of God " is henceforth synonymous 
with being a disciple of Jesus (Mark 15:43). This ex- 
pression, " kingdom of God," or " kingdom of heaven," 
was, as we have said, already long familiar to the Jews. 
But Jesus gave it a moral sense, a social application, which 
even the author of the Book of Daniel, in his apocalyptic 
enthusiasm, had scarcely dared to perceive in it. 

He found that, in the world as it is, evil reigns supreme. 
Satan is "the prince of this world" (John 12:31), and 
everything obeys him. The kings slay the prophets. The 
priests and the doctors do not that which they command 
others to do; the just are persecuted, and the only portion 
of the righteous is weeping. The " world " is in a manner 
the enemy of God and his saints ; 202 but God will awaken 
and will avenge his saints. The day is at hand, for the 
cup of iniquity is filled. Righteousness will reign in its 
turn. 

A great and sudden revolution is to mark the advent of 
this reign of righteousness. The world will seem as it 
were reversed; the actual state being bad, to represent the 
future one need but conceive nearly the contrary to that 
which exists. The first shall be last. 203 A new order of 
things will govern humanity. Now, good and evil are 
mixed like the tares and the good grain in a field. The 

202 John 1: 10; 7: 7; 14: 17,22,27; 15: 18-20; 16: 8, 20,33; 17: 9,14, 
16, 25. This force of the word "world" is especially marked in the 
writings of Paul and those ascribed to John. 

203 Matt. 19: 30; 20: 16. Mark 10: 31. Luke 13: 30. 

86 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

master lets them grow up together; but the hour of violent 
separation will come. 204 The kingdom of God will be as 
the casting of a great net, which takes both good and bad 
fish; the good are gathered into vessels, and the rest are 
thrown away. 205 The germ of this great revolution will 
not be visible at the first. It will be like a grain of mustard- 
seed, which is the smallest of seeds, but which, sowed in the 
earth, becomes a tree under the foliage of which the birds 
come for rest ; 206 or it will be like the leaven which, hidden 
in the meal, makes the whole ferment. 207 A series of para- 
bles, which were often obscure, was intended to express the 
suddenness of this advent, its apparent injustices, and its 
inevitable and final character. 208 

Who was to establish this kingdom of God? It should 
be remembered that the first idea of Jesus, an idea so 
deeply rooted in him that it had probably no beginning and 
belonged to the very foundation of his being, was that he 
was the Son of God, the friend of his Father, the doer of 
his will. The answer of Jesus to such a question then 
could not be dubious. The persuasion that he was to make 
God reign upon earth took absolute possession of his spirit. 
He looked upon himself as the universal reformer. Heaven, 
earth, the whole of nature, madness, disease, and death, 
were but his instruments. In his paroxysm of heroic de- 
termination he believed himself omnipotent. If the earth 
would not submit to this supreme transformation it would 
be overthrown and purified with fire and the breath of God. 
A new heaven would be created, and the whole world would 
be peopled with the angels of God. 209 

204 Matt. 13: 24-30. 

205 Ibid. 47-50. 

206 Ibid. 31, 32; Mark 4: 31, 32; Luke 13: 19. 

207 Matt. 13: 33. Luke 13: 21. 

208 Matt. 13; 18: 23-35; 20: 1-18. Luke 13: 18-30. 

209 Matt. 22: 30. Compare his reported words (Ep. of Barnabas, 6): 

87 



LIFE OF JESUS 

A sweeping revolution, 210 even extending to nature itself 
— such was the fundamental idea of Jesus. It was prob- 
ably from this time forth that he renounced politics; the 
example of Judas the Gaulonite had shown him the use- 
lessness of popular seditions. He never dreamed of rising 
in revolt against the Romans and tetrarchs. His was not 
the uncontrolled and anarchical principle of the Gaulonite. 
His submission to the established powers, though in reality- 
derisive, was in appearance complete. He paid tribute to 
Caesar in order to avoid scandal. Freedom and right were 
not of this world — why should he disturb his life with vain 
anxieties? Despising the earth, and convinced that the 
present world was not worth thinking about, he found 
refuge in his ideal kingdom; he established the great doc- 
trine of transcendent disdain, 211 the true doctrine of the 
liberty of the soul, which alone can give peace. But as yet 
he had not said, " My kingdom is not of this world." 
Much darkness obscured even his clearest visions. At times 
strange temptations would cross his mind. In the desert 
of Judaea Satan had offered him the kingdoms of the earth. 
Lacking in knowledge of the real strength of the Roman 
empire as he was, and feeling the enthusiasm which was 
stirring Judaea to its depths and was soon to culminate in 
a terrible outbreak of armed resistance, he might well hope 
to found a kingdom by his numerous following and his own 
audacity. Many times perhaps the supreme question pre- 
sented itself to him — will the kingdom of God be achieved 
by force or by gentleness, by revolt or by patience? One 
tlay, it is said, the simple folk of Galilee wished to carry 
him away and make him king (John 6: 15), but Jesus fled 
into the mountains and remained there for some time in 

" Behold, I do the last, even as the first" (iSob iroiw to irpSsra &>s to e<rxo to, 
ed. Hilgenfeld, p. 18). 

210 Restitution of all things" (Karda-raffis irii.vrwv i Acts 3: 21). 

211 Matt. 17: 24-27; 22: 16-23. 

88 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

solitude. His noble nature preserved him from the error 
which would have made him an agitator or a rebel chief, a 
I Theudas or a Barkokeba. 

The revolution he wished to bring about was always a 
moral revolution; but he had not yet begun to trust to 
angels and the last trumpet for its execution. It was upon 
men and by men themselves that he wished to act. A 
visionary, who had no other idea than the proximity of the 
last judgment, would not have had this solicitude for man's 
amelioration, and would not have founded the finest system 
of practical moral teaching that humanity has ever received. 
No doubt his ideas retained much vagueness, and it was 
rather a noble feeling than a settled design that urged him 
to the sublime work which was achieved by him, though in 
a very different manner from that which he imagined. 

It was indeed the kingdom of God, or in other words, 
the kingdom of the soul, which he founded; and if Jesus, 
from the bosom of his Father, beholds his work bearing 
fruit in the history of the world, he may indeed say with 
truth, " This is what I have desired." That which Jesus 
established, that which will remain eternally his, allowing 
for the imperfections inseparable from everything realised 
by mankind, is the doctrine of the freedom of the soul. 
Greece had already conceived exalted ideas on this sub- 
ject. 212 Some of the Stoics had learnt how to be free even 
under a tyrant. But in general the ancient world had re- 
garded liberty as being attached to certain political forms; 
freedom was personified in Harmodius and Aristogiton, 
Brutus and Cassius. The true Christian enjoys more real 
freedom; here below he is an exile; what matters it to him 
who is his transitory governor on this earth, which is not 
his home? For him liberty is truth. 213 Jesus was not suf- 

212 See Stobaeus, Florilegium, chaps. 62, 77, 86 et seq. 

213 John 8: 32-36. 

89 



LIFE OF JESUS 

ficiently acquainted with history to understand that such 
a doctrine came most opportunely at the moment when 
republican liberty was coming to an end, and the small 
municipal states of antiquity were being absorbed in the 
unity of the Roman empire. But his admirable good 
sense, and the truly prophetic instinct which he had of his 
mission, guided him with marvellous certainty. By the 
saying, " Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's, 
and unto God the things which are God's," 214 he created 
something that stood apart from politics, a refuge for souls 
in the midst of the empire of brute force. Assuredly such 
a doctrine had its dangers. To lay down as a principle that 
legitimate power is to be recognised by the inscription on 
its coins, to proclaim that the perfect man pays tribute 
disdainfully and without question, was to destroy republican- 
ism in its ancient form, and to favour all tyranny. 
Christianity has, in this sense, contributed much to weaken 
the feeling of civic duty, and to deliver the world to the 
absolute power of existing circumstances. But by con- 
stituting an immense free association, which, for three 
hundred years, was able to stand apart from politics, 
Christianity has amply compensated for the wrong it did 
to civic virtues. The power of the state has been limited 
to the things of earth; the mind has been freed, at least 
the terrible rod of Roman omnipotence has been broken for 
ever. 

The man who is, before all else, preoccupied with the j 
duties of public life does not readily forgive those who re- 
gard anything as being higher than his party quarrels. 
Above all he blames those who subordinate political to social 
questions, and profess a certain indifference for the former. 
In one sense he is right, for exclusive power is prejudicial 
to the proper government of human affairs. But what 

214 Markl2:17. 
90 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

progress have political " parties " caused in the general 
morality of our species? If Jesus, instead of founding his 
heavenly kingdom, had betaken himself to Rome, and ex- 
pended his energies in plotting against Tiberius or in re- 
gretting Germanicus, what would have become of the world ? 
As an austere republican or zealous patriot, he would not 
have arrested the great current of the events of his age; 
but in his declaration that politics are of minor importance, 
he revealed to the world this truth — that one's country is 
not everything, and that man precedes the citizen in time 
and is on a higher plane. 

The principles of our positive science are offended by 
the dreams which formed part of the ideal scheme of Jesus. 
We know the history of the earth ^cosmical revolutions of 
the kind expected by Jesus are only the results of geologi- 
cal or astronomical causes, the connection of which with 
spiritual things has never yet been demonstrated. But, in 
order to be just to great masters, they must not be judged 
by their share of popular prejudices. Columbus discovered 
America, though he started from very erroneous ideas; New- 
ton believed his foolish explanation of the Apocalypse to 
be as true as his theory of the world. Shall we place an 
ordinary man of our own time above a Francis of Assisi, 
a St. Bernard, a Joan of Arc, or a Luther, because he is 
free from errors which they professed ? Is it desirable that 
we should measure men by the correctness of their ideas of 
physics, and by the more or less exact knowledge which 
they possess of the real constitution of the world? We 
must better understand the position of Jesus and the prin- 
ciples underlying his power. Eighteenth century deism 
and a certain kind of Protestantism have accustomed us to 
think of the founder of the Christian faith only as a great 
moralist, a benefactor of mankind. We see nothing more 
in the Gospel than good maxims; we throw a veil of pru- 

91 



LIFE OF JESUS 

dence over the strange intellectual state in which the Gospel 
came into being. In like manner there are persons who 
regret that the French Revolution more than once departed 
from principles, and that it was not brought about by wise 
and moderate men. Let us not impose our petty and 
bourgeois programmes on these extraordinary movements 
that are so far above our ordinary conceptions. Let us 
continue to admire the " morality of the Gospel " — let us 
suppress in our religious teachings the chimera which was 
its very soul; but do not let us believe that the world is 
to be stirred by simple ideas of happiness or individual 
morality. The idea of Jesus was much more profound; it 
was the most revolutionary idea ever existent in a human 
mind; it should be taken in its totality, and not with those 
timid suppressions which deprive it of precisely that which 
has made it of service in the regeneration of mankind. 

Essentially the ideal is ever a Utopia. When nowadays 
we wish to represent the Christ as he appears to the con- 
sciousness of our own generation, the consoler and the 
judge of modern times, what do we do? That which Jesus 
himself did eighteen hundred and thirty years ago. We 
suppose the conditions of the real world as being quite other 
than they are; we represent a moral liberator breaking 
without weapons the chains of the negro, ameliorating the 
condition of the poor, delivering the nations from the hands 
of their oppressor. We forget that this implies the world 
revolutionised, the climate of Virginia and that of the 
Congo modified, the blood and the race of millions of men 
transformed, our social complications restored to a chimeri- 
cal simplicity, and the political stratifications of Europe 
displaced from their natural order. The " restoration of 
all things " 215 desired by Jesus was not more difficult. The 
new earth, the new heaven, the new Jerusalem descending 

215 Acts 3: 21. 
92 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

from above, the cry: " Behold I make all things new! ' 
'yttre characteristics common to all reformers. The contrast 
of the ideal with the pitiful reality will always cause hu- 
man revolts against dispassionate reason such as these, 
which the man of petty mind regards as madness until the 
day of their triumph, when those who have opposed them 
will be the first to recognise their reasonableness. 

That there may have been a contradiction between the 
dogma of an approaching end of the world and the general 
ethical system of Jesus, conceived in view of a permanent 
state of mankind, nearly analogous to that which now 
exists, none will attempt to deny. 217 It was precisely this 
contradiction that ensured the success of his work. The 
millenarian alone would have done nothing that was lasting, 
the moralist alone nothing that was powerful. The mil- 
lenaridnism gave the impulse, the ethics insured the future. 
In this way Christianity united the two conditions of great 
success in this world — a revolutionary starting-point, and 
the possibility of continued existence. Everything that is 
to succeed must respond to these two wants; for the world 
seeks at once to change and to endure. Jesus, at the same 
time that he announced an unparalleled revolution in human 
affairs, proclaimed the principles upon which society has 
rested for eighteen hundred years. 

That indeed which distinguishes Jesus from the agitators 
of his own time, and from those of all ages, is his perfect 
idealism. Jesus was, in some respects, an anarchist, for he 
had no idea of civil government. That government seemed 
to him purely and simply an abuse. He spoke of it in 
vague terms, and as a man of the people with no idea of 
politics. Every magistrate appeared to him a natural 

126 Rev. 21:5. 

127 rpjjg English Adventists show the same inconsistency, — a belief 
in the near end of the world, along with much good sense in common 
life, and wonderful shrewdness in manufactures and trade. 

93 



-7 



LIFE OF JESUS 

enemy of the people of God; he predicted that his dis- 
ciples would be in conflict with the civil powers, without 
thinking for a moment that there was anything of which 
to be ashamed in this. 218 But he never showed any desire 
to put himself in the place of the rich and the mighty. He 
desired to annihilate riches and power, but not to seize them 
for himself. He predicted that his disciples 219 would 
suffer persecution and all manner of punishments; but 
never once did the thought of armed resistance manifest 
itself. The idea of being all-powerful by suffering and 
resignation, and of triumphing over force by purity of heart, 
is indeed an idea peculiar to Jesus. Jesus was not a dual- 
ist, for to him everything tended to a concrete realisation; 
he had not the least notion of a soul separated from the 
body. But he was a perfect idealist, matter being to him 
only the outward manifestation of the idea, and the real, 
the living expression of that which is invisible. 

To whom should we turn, in whom should we trust to 
establish the kingdom of God? There was no doubt in the 
mind of Jesus on this point. That which is held in honour 
amongst men is abomination in the sight of God. The 
founders of the kingdom of God are the simple. Not the 
rich, not the learned, not priests ; but women, common folk, 
the humble, little children. 220 The great sign of the Mes- 
siah's coming is that " the poor have the good tidings 
preached to them." It was the idyllic and gentle nature of 
Jesus that here resumed the upper hand. A great social 
revolution, in which distinctions of rank would be dissolved, 
in which all authority in this world would be humiliated, 

218 Matt. 10: 17, 18; Luke 12: 11. 

219 Matt. 5: 10-12; 10 throughout. Luke 6: 22, 23. John 15: 18-20; 
6: 2-4, 20, 33; 17: 14. 

220 Matt. 5: 3, 10; 18: 3; 19: 14, 23, 24; 20: 16; 21: 31; 22: 2-14. 
Mark 10: 14, 15, 23-25. Luke 1: 51-53; 4: 18, 19; 6: 20; 13: 30; 14: 11; 
18: 14, 16, 17, 24, 25. 

94 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

was his dream. The world was not to believe him; the 
world was to put him to death at last. But his disciples 
were not to be of this world. 221 They were to be a little 
flock of humble and simple folk, who would conquer by 
their very humility. The idea which has made " worldly " 
the antithesis of " Christian " was fully justified in the 
thoughts of the Master. 222 

221 John 15: 19; 17: 14, 16. 

222 See, above all, John 17, which contains, not a real discourse spoken 
by Jesus, but a sentiment profoundly felt by his disciples, which flowed 
legitimately from his teaching. 



95 



CHAPTER VIII 

Jesus at Capernaum 

We shall find that Jesus, possessed by an idea that 
gradually grows more and more imperiously exclusive, will 
proceed henceforth with a kind of fatal impassibility along 
the path marked out by his astonishing genius and the ex- 
traordinary circumstances in which he lived. Hitherto he 
had only confided his thoughts to a few persons secretly at- 
tracted to him; henceforward his teaching was given in 
public and drew popular attention. He was about thirty 
years of age. 223 The little group of hearers which had 
accompanied him to John the Baptist had increased no 
doubt, and perhaps some of John's disciples had attached 
themselves to him. 224 It was with this first nucleus of a 
Church that he boldly announced, on his return to Galilee, 
the " good tidings of the kingdom of God." This king- 
dom was at hand, and it was he, Jesus, who was that " Son 
of man " whom Daniel in his vision had beheld as the di- 
vine herald of the last and supreme revelation. 

It must be remembered that in Jewish ideas, which were 
opposed to art and mythology, the simple form of man had 
a superiority over those of the cherubim and fantastic 
animals which the imagination of the people, since it had 
been under Assyrian influence, had ranged around the Di- 
vine Majesty. Already, in Ezekiel, 225 the Being seated on 

223 Luke 3: 23; Ebionite Gospel (Epiphanius Adv. hcer. 30: 13); Valen- 
tinus (Irenmis Adv. hwr. 1, 1: 3; 2, 22: 1, 2. Epiphanius ibid. 61: 28, 29.) 
John 8: 57 has no bearing here, "fifty years" being a general expression 
of age. Irenaeus (ibid. 22: 5, 6) does little more than echo John, though 
claiming to rest on the tradition of the " elders " of Asia. 

224 John 1:37-43. 

226 Chap. 1:5, 26-28. 

96 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

the supreme throne, far above the monsters of the myste- 
rious chariot, the great revealer of prophetic visions, has the 
figure of a man. In the book of Daniel, in the midst of 
the vision of the empires, represented by animals, at the 
moment when the great judgment begins and the books 
are being opened, a Being " like unto a Son of man " ad- 
vances towards the Ancient of Days, who bestows on him 
power to judge the world and govern it for eternity. " Son 
of man," in the Semitic languages, especially in the Ara- 
mean dialects, is a simple synonym of " man." But this 
important passage in Daniel impressed men's minds; the 
words, " Son of man," became, at least in certain schools 
of thought, 226 one of the titles of the Messiah, regarded 
as judge of the world, and king of the new era about to 
be inaugurated. 227 The application which Jesus made of 
it to himself was therefore the proclamation of his Mes- 
siahship, and the affirmation of the coming catastrophe in 
which he was to act as judge, clad with the full powers 
delegated to him by the Ancient of Days. 

The success of the new prophet's teaching was now de- 
cisive. A group of men and women, all characterised by 

226 In John 12: 34 the Jews appear unfamiliar with this meaning of the 
phrase. 

227 Matt. 10: 23; 13: 41; 16: 27, 28; 19: 28; 24: 27, 30, 37, 39, 44; 
25: 31; 26: 64. Mark 13: 26; 14: 62. Luke 12: 40; 17: 24, 26, 30; 21: 27, 
36; 22: 69. Acts 7: 55. But the most decisive passage is John 5: 27 
["He hath given him authority to exercise judgment also, because he 
is the Son of Man"], when put beside Rev. 1: 13 and 14: 14. Compare 
Book of Enoch 46: 1-4; 48: 2, 3; 62: 5, 7, 9, 14; 69: 26, 27, 29; 70: 1 
(Dillmann's arrangement): also 4 Esdras 13: 2 et seq., 12, 13, 25, 32 
(Ethiopic, Arabic, and Syriac versions, eds. of Ewald, Volkmar, and 
Ceriani), Ascension of Isaiah (Venetian Latin text of 1522, col. 702, 
Migne's ed.), and Justin, Tryph., 49, 76. The expression "Son of 
woman," denoting the Messiah, is found once in Enoch 62: 5. It is to 
be remarked that the entire'passage of Enoch, chapters 62 to 71, is sus- 
pected to be interpolated. The Fourth Book of Esdras was written in 
the reign of Nerva [a.d. 68], by a Jew under the influence of Christian 
ideas. 

97 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the same spirit of childish frankness and simple innocence, 
adhered to him, and said, " Thou art the Messiah." As 
the Messiah was to be the son of David, they naturally en- 
dowed him with this title, which was synonymous with the 
former. Jesus willingly allowed it to be given to him, 
although it might cause him some embarrassment, his birth 
being well known. The name which he himself preferred 
was that of " Son of man," an apparently humble title, but 
one directly connected with Messianic hopes. It was by 
this title that he designated himself, to such an extent in- 
deed that on his lips " Son of man " 228 was synonymous 
with the pronoun I, the use of which he avoided. But he 
was never thus addressed, doubtless because the name in 
question was destined to be fully applicable to him only on 
the day of his future appearance. 

The centre of his operations at this epoch of his life was 
the little town of Capernaum, situated on the shore of the 
Lake of Genesareth. The name of Capernaum, of which 
the word caphar, " village," forms a part, seems to desig- 
nate a small old-fashioned town, as opposed to the large 
towns built on the Roman system, like Tiberias. 229 Its 
name was so little known, that Josephus, in one passage 
in his writings, 230 takes it for the name of a fountain, the 
fountain being of greater celebrity than the village stand- 
ing near it. Like Nazareth, Capernaum had no history, 
and had in no way participated in the profane movement 
favoured by the Herods. Jesus was much attached to the 

228 It occurs 83 times in the Gospels, always in his own discourses. 

229 It is true that Tell-Hum, commonly identified with Capernaum, 
shows some ruins of quite handsome monuments; but the identification 
is doubtful, and these may belong to the second or third century after 
Christ. 

230 Josephus, Wars, 3, 10: 8. 

231 Matt. 9: 1. Mark 2: 1. Capernaum appears in the Talmud as 
the town of heretics (minim), who are here evidently Christians. Midrash, 
Koheleth (Eccl.), 7: 26. 

98 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

town and made it a second home. 231 Soon after his return 
he had attempted to begin his work at Nazareth/ 32 but 
without success. He could not perform any miracle there, 
as one of his biographers naively remarks. 233 The fact 
that his family, which was of humble rank, was known in 
the district lessened his authority too much. People could 
not regard as the son of David one whose brother, sister, 
and brother-in-law they saw every day; and it is moreover 
remarkable that his family were strongly opposed to him, 
and flatly declined to believe in his mission. 234 On one oc- 
casion his mother and his brothers maintained that he was 
out of his mind, and sought to arrest him by force. 235 The 
Nazarenes, who were still more violent, wished, it is said, 
to kill him by throwing him from a steep cliff. 236 Jesus 
aptly remarked that this treatment was the common fate of 
all great men, and applied to himself the proverb, " No 
man is a prophet in his own country." 

This check far from discouraged him. He returned to 
Capernaum, 237 where he was much more favourably re- 
ceived, and from there he organised a series of missions 
among the little towns in the neighbourhood. The people 
of this beautiful and fertile country scarcely ever assembled 
together except on the Sabbath. This was the day which 
he chose for his teaching. At that time each town had its 
synagogue, or place of meeting. This was a rather small 
rectangular room, with a portico, decorated in the Greek 

232 Matt. 13: 54-58; Mark 6: 1-6; Luke 4: 16-30; John 4: 44. 

233 Mark 6:5; comp. Matt. 13: 58; Luke 4: 23. 

234 Matt. 13: 57; Mark 6:4; John 7: 3-5. 

235 Mark 3: 21, 31-35, noting the connection of the verses 20, 21, 31, 
even if we read in 31 ical ipxovrai instead of epxovrai oly. 

236 'pjjjg j s p ro bably the sharp cliff near Nazareth, above the present 
Maronite church; not the so-called "mount of precipitation," at an hour's 
distance from Nazareth (see Robinson, 2: 335 et seq.). 

237 Matt. 4: 13; Luke 4: 31; John 2: 12. 

99 

Ufa 



LIFE OF JESUS 

style. The Jews, having no distinctive architecture of their 
own, never troubled to give these edifices an original style. 
The remains of many ancient synagogues still exist in 
Galilee. 238 They are all constructed of large and good 
materials; but their style is somewhat tawdry, in conse- 
quence of the profusion of floral ornaments, foliage, and 
twisted decorative work which characterises Jewish build- 
ings. 239 In the interior there were seats, a pulpit for public 
reading, and a closet to contain the sacred rolls. 240 These 
edifices, which had none of the characteristics of a temple, 
were the centres of the whole of Jewish life. There the 
people gathered together on the Sabbath for prayer, and the 
reading of the Law and the Prophets. As Judaism, except 
in Jerusalem, had, properly speaking, no clergy, the first 
comer stood up and read the lessons of the day (parasha 
and haphtara) , adding thereto a midrash, or entirely per- 
sonal commentary, in which he unfolded his own ideas. 241 
This was the origin of the " homily," the finished model 
of which we find in the short treatises of Philo. Those 
present had the right of raising objections and putting 
questions to the reader; so that the meeting soon 

238 At Tell-Hum, Irbid (Arbela), Meiron (Mero), Jisch (Gischala), 
Kasyoun, Nabartein; two at Kefr-Bereim. 

239 1 do not as yet venture to pronounce on the age of these monu- 
ments, or, consequently, to assert that Jesus taught in any of them. On 
such a supposition, what interest there would be in the synagogue of 
Tell-Hum ! The great synagogue of Kefr-Bereim seems to me the 
oldest of all; it is in quite a pure style. That of Kasyoun has a Greek 
inscription of the time of Septimius Severus. The great importance of 
Judaism in upper Galilee after the war of Hadrian leads us to think 
that many of these edifices are not of earlier date than the third century, 
when Tiberias became a sort of Jewish capital. (See Journ. AsiaL, 
December, 1864, p. 531 et seq.) 

240 Esdras 8: 4; Matt. 23: 6. Mishna, Magilla, 3: 1; Rosch 
hasschana, 4: 7, etc. See, especially, the curious description of the 
synagogue at Alexandria in the Babylonian Talmud, Sukka, 51 b. 

241 Philo in Euseb., Prcep. evang. 8: 7; quod omnis probus liber, 12. 
Luke 4: 16. Acts 13: 15; 15: 21. Mishna, Magilla, 3: 4. 

100 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

degenerated into a meeting for free discussion. 242 It 
had a president (dp^tcruvaycoyos), " elders " (7rp€<rf3vTepoiY 
a recognized reader or apparitor (vTrrjpirr)<s hazzan), depu- 
ties (ayyeXot or a,7rocrToAot ), a sort of secretaries or mes- 
sengers who conducted the correspondence between the 
different synagogues, and a sacristan ( 8Ya/<oi/os, scham- 
masch). 2i3 Thus the synogogues were really little inde- 
pendent republics, which had an extensive jurisdiction, 
undertook the responsibility of enfranchisement, and super- 
vised those enfranchised. 244 Like all municipal corpora- 
tions, up to an advanced period of the Roman empire, they 
issued honorary decrees, 243 voted resolutions, which had 
legal force for the community, and ordained corporal pun- 
ishments, which were generally carried out by the haz- 
zan. 2 * 6 

With the extreme activity of mind which has always 
characterised the Jews, such an institution, despite the 
arbitrary rigours it tolerated, could not fail to give rise 
to very lively discussions. Thanks to the synagogues, 
Judaism has been able to maintain its integrity through 
eighteen centuries of persecution. They were like so many 
little worlds apart, which preserved the national spirit and 
offered a field for intestine struggles. A large amount of 
passion was expended in them; quarrels for precedence 

242 See Garucci, Dissert, archeol. 2: 161 et seq. 

243 Mark 5: 22, 35. Luke 4: 20; 7: 3; 8: 41, 49; 23: 14. Acts 13: 15; 
18: 8, 17. Rev. 2: 4. Mishna, Joma, 7: 1. Rosch hasschana, 4: 9. 
Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, 1: 7. Epiphan. Adv. hwr. 30: 4, 11. 

2ii Antiq. du Bosph. Cimm. inscr. 22, 23; Melanges greco-lat. of the 
St. Petersburg Academ., 2: 200. Levy. Epigraphische Beitrdge zur 
Geschichte der Juden, 273, 298. 

245 Inscr. of Berenice, in the Corpus inscr. Grcec. No. 5361; inscr. of 
Kasyoun, in Journal Asiatique, 1. c. 

246 Matt. 5: 25; 10: 17; 23: 34. Mark 13: 9. Luke 12: 11; 21: 12. 
Acts 22: 19; 26: 11. 2 Cor. 11: 24. Mishna, Maccoth, 3: 12. Baby- 
lonian Talmud, Magilla, 7 b; Epiph. Adv. hatr, 30: 11. 

101 



LIFE OF JESUS 

were hotly contested. To have a seat of honour in the front 
row was the reward of great piety, or the most envied 
privilege of wealth. 247 On the other hand, the liberty, ac- 
corded to every one who cared to have it, of instituting 
himself reader and commentator of the sacred text, afforded 
marvellous facilities for the propagation of new ideas. 
This was one of the great instruments of power wielded 
by Jesus, and his most customary method of propounding 
his doctrinal instruction. 248 He entered the synagogue and 
stood up to read; the hazzan offered him the book, he un- 
rolled it, and reading the parasha, or haphtara of the day, 
he drew from this reading some development in harmony 
with his own ideas. 249 As there were few Pharisees in Gali- 
lee, the discussion did not assume that degree of intensity 
and tone of acrimony against him which at Jerusalem would 
have arrested his progress at the outset. These good Gali- 
leans had never heard preaching so well adapted to their 
cheerful imaginations. 250 They admired him, they en- 
couraged him, they found that he spoke well and that his 
reasons were convincing. He confidently answered the 
most difficult obj ections ; the almost poetical harmony of his 
discourses won the affections of those people, whose simple 
minds had not yet been withered by the pedantry of the 
doctors. 

The authority of the young master thus continued to 
increase day by day, and naturally the more that people 
believed in him, the more he believed in himself. His 
sphere of action was very narrow. It was wholly confined 
to the valley of the Lake of Tiberias; and even in this 
valley there was one region which he preferred. The Lake 

247 Matt. 23: 6. James 2: 3. Babylonian Talmud, Sukka, 51 b. 

248 Matt. 4: 33; 9: 35. Mark 1: 21, 39; 6: 2. Luke 4: 15, 16, 31, 44; 
13: 10. John 18: 20. 

249 Luke 4: 16-20: cf. Mishna, Joma, 7:1. 

250 Matt. 7: 28; 13: 54. Mark 1: 22; 6: 1. Luke 4: 22, 32. 

102 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

is fifteen or sixteen miles long and nine or ten broad. Al- 
though it presents the appearance of an almost perfect 
oval, it forms a kind of gulf commencing from Tiberias up 
to the entrance of the Jordan, the curve of which measures 
about nine miles. Such was the field in which the seed 
sown by Jesus at last found a well-prepared soil. Let us 
go over it step by step, and try to imagine how it looked 
before it was covered with the mantle of aridity and mourn- 
ing cast upon it by the evil spirit of Islamism. 

On leaving Tiberias, we at first find steep cliffs forming 
a mountain which seems to plunge into the sea. Then the 
mountains gradually recede; a plain (El Ghoueir) opens 
almost on a level with the lake. It is a delightful wood of 
rich verdure, furrowed by numerous streams which partly 
flow from a great round basin of ancient construction (Ain- 
Medawara). On the border of this plain, which is, prop- 
erly speaking, the country of Genesareth, is the miserable 
village of Medjdel. At the other end of the plain, still 
following the coast-line, we come upon the site of a town 
(Khan-Minyeh), with very beautiful streams (Ain-et-Tin), 
and a pretty road, narrow and deep, cut out of the rock, 
which Jesus must often have trod, serving as a passage 
between the plain of Genesareth and the northern slopes 
of the lake. A quarter of an hour's journey from here we 
cross a stream of salt water (Ain-Tabiga) issuing from the 
earth by several large springs at a little distance from the 
lake, and flowing into it in the midst of a dense mass of 
verdure. At last, after forty minutes' further walking, we 
find upon the arid declivity which extends from Ain-Tabiga 
to the mouth of the Jordan, a few huts and a collection of 
monumental ruins, called Tell-Houm. 

Five little towns, the names of which mankind will re- 
member as long as those of Rome and Athens, were stand- 
ing in the time of Jesus, in the district which extends from 
103 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the village of Medjdel to Tell-Houm. Of these five towns, 
Magdala, Dalmanutha, Capernaum, Bethsaida, and Chora- 
zin, the first alone can be identified at the present time with 
any certainty. 251 The repulsive village of Medjdel has no 
doubt kept the name and site of the little town which gave 
to Jesus his most faithful friend. 252 The site of Dal- 
manutha is quite unknown. 253 It is possible that Chorazin 
was a little further inland, to the north of the lake. 254 As 
to Bethsaida and Capernaum, it is in truth almost at hazard 
that they have been placed at Tell-Houm, Ain-et-Tin, Khan- 
Minyeh, or Ain-Medawara. 255 We might imagine that in 
topography, as well as in history, there has been some pro- 
found design purposely concealing the traces of the great 
founder. It is doubtful whether we shall ever succeed 
throughout this district of utter devastation in ascertaining 
the places to which mankind would gladly come to kiss the 
imprint of his feet. 

The lake, the horizon, the shrubs, the flowers, are all 
that remain of the little district, three or four leagues in 
extent, where Jesus initiated his divine work. The trees 

251 The ancient Kinnereth [Gennesareth] has disappeared or changed 
its name. 

252 Magdala is known to have been close to Tiberias: Jerusalem Tal- 
mud, Maasaroth, 3:1; Schebiit, 9: 1; Erubin, 5: 7. 

253 Mark 8: 10. In the parallel passage (Matt. 15: 39) the common 
reading is MoySaAo; but this is a late alteration from the true reading 
Ma\a$»j/ (p. 151, note, below). MAAAAAN seems to be an alteration for 
AAAMAN ovda (see Comptes rendus de V Acad, des inscr. et belles lettres, 
Aug. 17, 1866). Right upon the Jordan, about five miles below its out- 
flow from the lake, there is an ancient locality called Dalhamia or Dal- 
mamia (see Thomson, "The Land and the Book," 2: 60, 61, and Van de 
Velde's map). But Mark 8: 10 assumes Dalmanutha to be on the lake 
shore. 

254 At the place called Khorazi or Bir-Kerazeh, above Tell-Hum 
(Van de Velde's map, and Thomson, 2: 13). 

255 The old theory identifying Tell-Hum with Capernaum, though of 
late strongly opposed, still has many defenders. The best argument in 
its favor is the name itself; since Tell is found in the name of many 
villages, or may have taken the place of Caphar (see an instance in the 

104 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

have totally disappeared. In this country, in which vegeta- 
tion was formerly so luxuriant that Josephus saw in it a 
kind of miracle — nature, according to him, being pleased 
to bring hither, side by side, the plants of cold countries, 
the growths of the torrid zone, and the trees of temperate 
climates, laden all the year with flowers and fruits 256 — in 
this country travellers are now obliged to calculate a day 
beforehand the spot where they are next to find a shady 
resting-place. The lake has become deserted. A single 
craft in the most miserable condition now crosses the waves 
that were once so rich in life and joy. But the waters are 
still clear and transparent. 257 The shore, composed of rocks 
and pebbles, is that of a little sea, not that of a pond, like 
the shores of Lake Huleh. It is clean, dainty, free from 
mud, and always beaten in the same place by the light 
movement of the waves. Small promontories, covered with 
rose-laurels, tamarisks, and thorny caper bushes, are to be 
seen; in two places especially, at the mouth of the Jordan, 
near Tarichea, and on the border of the plain of Genes- 
areth, there are beautiful gardens where the waves ebb 
and flow through masses of turf and flowers. The rivulet 
of Ain-Tabiga makes a little estuary, full of pretty shells. 
Bevies of aquatic birds cover the lake. The horizon daz- 
zles one with its intense light. The waters, of an empyrean 

Archives des missions scientifiques, 2d ser. 3: 369). On the other 
hand, near Tell-Hum no spring can be found answering to the account 
of Josephus (Wars, 3, 10: 8). This spring at Capernaum might seem 
to be Ain-M edawara; but this is half a league from the lake, while Caper- 
naum is a fishing- village on the water front (Matt. 4: 13; John 6: 17). 
The case of Bethsaida is still more perplexing; for the generally admitted 
theory of two Bethsaidas on opposite sides of the lake, eight or nine miles 
apart, is rather forced. 

256 Josephus, Wars, 3, 10: 8. Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim, 8 b; 
Siphre, Vezoth habberaka. 

257 Josephus, Wars, 3, 10: 7. Jacob of Vitry [a French ecclesiastic, 
assailant of the Albigenses, and agent of a charitable mission in Pal- 
estine about 1200], Gesta Dei per Francos, 1: 1075. 

105 



LIFE OF JESUS 

blue, deeply imbedded amid burning rocks, seem, when 
viewed from the height of the mountains of Safed, to lie 
at the bottom of a golden cup. On the north, the snowy 
ravines of Hermon stretch in white lines along the sky; on 
the west, the high undulating plateaus of Gaulonitis and 
Perea, absolutely barren and clad by the sun with a kind 
of soft haze, form one compact mountain, or rather a long 
and very lofty ridge, which from Csesarea Philippi runs 
indefinitely towards the south. 

The heat on the shore is now very oppressive. The lake 
lies in a hollow six hundred and fifty feet below the level 
of the Mediterranean, 258 and thus shares the torrid con- 
ditions of the Dead Sea. An abundant vegetation formerly 
tempered this excessive heat; it would be difficult to under- 
stand how a furnace, such as the whole lake valley is at the 
present day, from the beginning of the month of May, 
can have ever been the scene of great activity. Josephus 
however considered the country very temperate. 259 There 
can be no doubt that here, as in the Campagna of Rome, 
there has been a change of climate brought about by his- 
torical causes. It is Islamism, and especially the Mussul- 
man reaction against the Crusades, which has withered as 
with a blast of death the land beloved by Jesus. The peo- 
ple of this beautiful country of Genesareth never suspected 
that behind the brow of this peaceful wayfarer its highest 
destinies were being determined. Jesus was a dangerous 
fellow-countryman ; for he was fatal to the land which had 
the portentous glory of bearing him. Having become the 
object of universal love or hate, coveted by two rival fa- 

258 This is the reckoning of M. Vogues (Connaissance des temps for 
1866), closely agreeing with that of Captain Lynch (in Ritter, Erdkunde, 
15: pt. 1, p. 20) and that of Bertou (Bulletin de la Societe de geographie 
ser. 2, 12: 146). The depression of the Dead Sea is more than twice 
as much. 

259 Josephus, Wars, 3, 10: 7, 8. 

106 



JESUS AT CAPERNAUM 

naticisms, Galilee, as the price of its fame, has been trans- 
formed into a desert. But who would say that Jesus would 
have been happier had he lived a life of obscurity in his 
village to the full age of man? And who would bestow 
a thought on these ungrateful Nazarenes, had not one of 
them, at the risk of compromising the future of their town, 
recognised his Father and proclaimed himself the Son of 
God? 

Four of five large villages, lying at half-an-hour's jour- 
ney from one another, formed the little world of Jesus at 
the time of which we speak. He does not appear to have 
ever visited Tiberias, a city inhabited for the most part by 
Pagans, and the usual residence of Antipas. 260 Sometimes, 
however, he wandered beyond his favourite region. He 
went by boat to the eastern shore, to Gergesa for in- 
stance. 261 Towards the north we see him at Paneas or 
Caesarea Philippi, at the foot of Mount Hermon. 262 And 
lastly, he journeyed once in the direction of Tyre and 
Sidon, 263 a country which must have been marvellously 
prosperous at that time. In all these districts he was in the 
midst of paganism. 264 At Caesarea he saw the celebrated 

280 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 3: 2; Life, 12, 13, 64. 

261 1 follow Thomson (The Land and the Book, 2: 34) in assuming Ger- 
gasa (Matt. 8: 28) to be the same with the Canaanite town Girgash 
(Gen. 10: 16 and 15: 21; Deut. 7: 1; Josh. 24: 11), and the spot now 
called Kersa or Gersa, on the eastern shore, nearly opposite Magdala. 
Mark 5: 1 and Luke 8: 26 give the name " Gadara" or " Gerasa" instead 
of "Gergesa." Gerasa is out of the question, since the Gospels show 
that the town was near the lake and opposite Galilee. As to Gadara 
(now Om-Keis), an hour and a half from the lake and the Jordan, the 
local circumstances given by Mark and Luke do not admit it. We under- 
stand, too, how "Gergasa" may have become "Gerasa," a name better 
known; and how the topographical difficulties thus raised suggested 
Gadara. (Cf. Origen Comm. in Joann. 6: 24; 10: 10. Eusebius and 
Jerome, De situ et nominibus locorum hebrceorum Tepyecra, Tepyaffei.) 

2 6 2 Matt. 16:13; Mark 8 : 27. 

263 Matt. 15: 21; Mark 7: 24, 31. 

264 Josephus, Life, 13. 

107 



LIFE OF JESUS 

grotto of Panium, thought to be the source of the Jordan, 
and associated in popular belief with weird legends ; 265 he 
could admire the marble temple which Herod had erected 
near there in honour of Augustus ; 266 he probably paused 
before the numerous votive statues to Pan, to the Nymphs, 
to the Echo of the Grotto, which piety had already begun 
to accumulate in this beautiful place. 267 A rationalistic 
Jew, accustomed to take strange gods for deified men or 
for demons, must have considered all these figurative rep- 
resentations as idols. The charm of nature worship, which 
seduced more sensitive nations, never affected him. He was 
doubtless ignorant of what traces of a primitive worship, 
more or less analogous to that of the Jews, the ancient 
sanctuary of Melkarth, at Tyre, might still contain. 268 The 
paganism which, in Phoenicia, had raised on every hill a 
temple and a sacred grove, and the general aspect of great 
industry and profane wealth, must have had little charm in 
his eyes. 269 Monotheism deprives men of all appreciation 
of the pagan religions; the Mussulman, who visits polythe- 
istic countries, seems to have no eyes. Jesus assuredly 
learnt nothing in these journeys. He returned always to 
his well-beloved shore of Genesareth. The mother-land of 
his thoughts was there; there he found faith and love. 

265 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 10: 3; Wars, 1, 21: 3; 3, 10: 7. Benjamin of 
Tudela, p. 46 (ed. Asher). 

266 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 10: 3; Wars, 1, 21: 3. Comp. the coins of 
Philip (Madden, Hist, of Jewish Coinage, p. 101 et seq). 

267 Corp. inscr. grate, 4537, 4538, 4538 b, 4539. These inscriptions, 
it is true, are mostly of quite modern date. 

268 Lucian, De dea Syria, 3. 

269 Traces of the rich pagan civilization of this period abound through- 
out the Beled-Besharrah, especially on the heights which form the 
promontories Blanco and Nakura. 



108 



CHAPTER IX 

The Disciples of Jesus 

In this earthly paradise, which the great revolutions of 
history had, up to that period, scarcely touched, lived a 
population in perfect harmony with the land itself, active, 
honest, joyous, and tender of heart. The Lake of Tiberias 
is one of the richest fishing-grounds in the world ; 270 very 
productive fisheries had been established, especially at Beth- 
saida and Capernaum, and had produced a certain degree 
of wealth. The fishermen and their families formed a 
population of gentle and peaceable folk, extending by 
numerous ties of relationship through the whole lake dis- 
trict which we have described. Their comparatively easy 
life left entire freedom to their imagination. Ideas about 
the kingdom of God found in these small communities of 
worthy people more credence than anywhere else. Noth- 
ing of what is called civilisation, in the Greek and worldly 
sense, had reached them. Neither was there any of our 
Teutonic and Celtic earnestness; but, although goodness 
amongst them was often superficial and without depth, they 
were quiet in their habits and had a certain intelligence and 
shrewdness. We may imagine them as somewhat similar 
to the better parts of the population of the Lebanon, but 
with the gift, which the latter do not possess, of producing 
great men. Here Jesus found his true family. He settled 
in their midst as one of them; Capernaum became " his own 
city " ; 271 in the centre of the little circle which adored him, 

270 Matt. 4: 18; Luke 5: 4-9; John 1: 44 and 21: 1-8. Josephus, 
Wars, 3, 10: 70; Jerusalem Talmud, Pesachim, 4:2; Babylonian Talmud, 
Baba kama, 80 b; Jacobus de Vitry, Gesta, etc., 1: 1075. 

271 Matt. 9: 1; Mark 2: 1,2. 

109 



LIFE OF JESUS 

his sceptical brothers and ungrateful Nazareth, with its 
mocking incredulity, were forgotten. 

One house above all at Capernaum offered him a pleasant 
refuge and devoted disciples. It was that of two brothers, 
both sons of a certain Jonas, who probably was dead at the 
time when Jesus came to live on the shores of the lake. 
These two brothers were Simon, surnamed Cephas, " a 
stone " in Syro-Chaldaic, in Greek Petros 272 and Andrew. 
Born at Bethsaida, 273 they were settled at Capernaum when 
Jesus began his public life. Peter was married and had 
children; his mother-in-law lived with him. 274 Jesus loved 
his house and dwelt in it habitually. 275 Andrew appears to 
have been a disciple of John the Baptist, and Jesus may 
possibly have known him on the banks of the Jordan. 276 
The two brothers always continued, even during the period 
in which apparently they must have been most occupied 
with their Master, to follow their employment as fisher- 
men. 277 Jesus, who was fond of playing upon words, said 
at times that he would make them fishers of men. 278 
Amongst all his disciples indeed he had none more de- 
votedly attached to him. 

Another family, that of Zabdia or Zebedee, a well-to-do- 
fisherman and owner of several boats, 279 gave Jesus a warm 

272 The surname Krjcpas is apparently the same with KaidQas, that of 
the high-priest, Joseph Caiaphas. The name Uerpos is found in Josephus 
(Antiq., 18, 6: 3) as the proper name of a contemporary. We are thus 
led to think that Jesus did not bestow upon him this epithet, but rather 
gave emphasis to the name which his disciple already had. 

273 Johnl:44. 

274 Matt. 8: 14; Mark 1: 30; Luke 4: 38; 1 Cor. 9: 5; 1 Pet. 5: 13. 
Clem. Alex. Strom. 3: 6 and 7: 11; Pseudo-Clem. Recogn. 7: 25; Euseb. 
Hist. eccl. 3: 30. 

275 Matt. 8: 14 and 17: 24; Mark 1: 29-31; Luke 4: 38. 
278 John 1:40, 41. 

277 Matt. 4: 18; Mark 1: 16; Luke 5:3; John 21: 3. 

878 Matt. 4: 19; Mark 1: 17; Luke 5: 10. 

379 Mark 1: 20; Luke 5: 10 and 8: 3; John 19: 27. 

110 



THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 

welcome. Zebedee had two sons: the elder was James, the 
younger, John, who later was destined to play a very promi- 
nent part in the history of infant Christianity. Both were 
zealous disciples. From certain indications, it would seem 
that John, like Andrew, had known Jesus when in company 
with John the Baptist. 2S0 In any case the two families of 
Jonas and Zebedee appear to have been closely united. 281 
Salome, wife of Zebedee, was also greatly attached to Jesus, 
and accompanied him until his death. 282 

Women, in fact, received him eagerly. He manifested 
towards them the reserved manners which make a very 
sweet union of ideas possible between the two sexes. The 
separation of men from women, which has precluded all 
progress in refinement among the Semitic peoples, was no 
doubt then, as in our own days, much less rigorous in the 
rural districts and villages than in the larger towns. Three 
or four devoted Galilean women always accompanied the 
young Master, and disputed among themselves the pleasure 
of listening to him and tending him in turn. 283 They 
brought into the new sect an element of enthusiasm and 
taste for the marvellous, the importance of which had al- 
ready begun to be understood. One of them, Mary of Mag- 
dala, who has given such a world-wide celebrity to that 
poor town, appears to have been of a very ardent tempera- 
ment. According to the language of the time, she had been 
possessed by seven demons 284 — that is, she had suffered 
from nervous and apparently inexplicable maladies. Jesus, 
by his pure and sweet beauty, calmed her troubled nature. 

280 John 1: 35-37. The mysterious way in which John is always 
spoken of in the Fourth Gospel seems to show that one of the disciples 
here unnamed is John himself. 

281 Matt. 4: 19; Mark 1: 17; Luke 5: 10. 

282 Matt. 27: 56; Mark 15: 40; 16: 1. 

283 Matt. 27: 55, 56; Mark 15: 40, 41; Luke 8: 2, 3, and 23: 49. 

284 Mark 16: 9; Luke 8: 2. Cf. Tobit 3: 8; 6: 14. 

Ill 



LIFE OF JESUS 

The Magdalene was faithful to him, even unto Golgotha, 
and on the day but one after his death played a leading 
part; for, as we shall see later, she was the principal agent 
by which faith in the resurrection was established. Joanna, 
wife of Chuza one of the stewards of Antipas, Susanna, and 
others who have remained unknown, followed him con- 
stantly and ministered to his wants. 285 Some were rich, and 
by their wealth enabled the young prophet to live without 
following the trade which, until then, he had practised. 286 

Many others made a practice of following him about, 
and acknowledged him as their Master; — a certain Philip 
of Bethsaida; Nathanael, son of Tolma'i or Ptolemy, of 
Cana, a disciple of the first period; 287 and Matthew, prob- 
ably to be identified with the Matthew who was the Xeno- 
phon of infant Christianity. He had, according to tradi- 
tion, been a tax-collector, 288 and as such doubtless handled 
the pen (kalam) more easily than the others. Perhaps it 
was this that suggested to him the idea of writing the dis- 
courses (logia) which form the basis of what we know of 
the teachings of Jesus. Among the disciples are also men- 
tioned Thomas or Didymus, 289 who was sometimes scepti- 
cal, but apparently a man of warm heart and of gener- 
ous impulses ; 29 ° one Lebbaeus or Thaddeus ; Simon the 
Zealot, 291 who was perhaps a disciple of Judas the Gau- 
lonite, and belonged to the party of the Kenaim, which was 
formed about that time and was soon to play so great a 

285 Luke 8: 3; 24: 10. 

286 Luke 8: 3. 

287 John 1: 44-47; 21: 2. Nathanael may be plausibly identified 
with the apostle who appears in the lists as Bartholomew (Bar-Tolmai, 
or Bar-Tholomseus). 

288 Matt. 9: 9; 10: 3. 

289 Didymus {twain, or twin) is the Greek rendering of Thomas. 

290 John 11: 14; 20: 24-29. 

291 Matt. 10: 4; Mark 3: 18; Luke 6: 15; Acts 1: 43; Ebionite Gospel 
(Epiph. Adv. hcer. 30: 13). 

112 



THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 

part in the movements of the Jewish people; Joseph Barsa- 
bas, surnamed "the Just"; Matthias; 292 a problematical 
person called Aristion ; 293 and lastly, Judas, son of Simon, 
of the town of Kerioth, who was the exception in the faith- 
ful flock, and drew upon himself so terrible a notoriety. 
He was the only one who was not a Galilean. Kerioth was 
a town at the extreme south of the tribe of Judah, a day's 
journey beyond Hebron. 294 

We have seen that on the whole the family of Jesus had 
little affection for him. 295 James and Jude, however, his 
cousins by Mary Cleophas, became his disciples hence- 
forth, 296 and Mary Cleophas herself was one of those 
friends who followed him to Calvary. 297 At this period we 
do not see his mother beside him. It was only after the 
death of Jesus that Mary acquired great importance, 298 and 
that the disciples sought to attach her to them. 299 It was 
then, too, that the members of the founder's family, under 
the name of " brothers of the Lord," formed an influential 
group, which for a long time headed the church of Jeru- 
salem, 300 and, after the sack of the city, took refuge in 
Batanea. 301 The simple fact of having been familiar with 

292 Acts 1: 21 ? 23; cf. Papias (Euseb. Hist. eccl. 3: 39). 

293 Papias (ibid.) calls him a disciple like the apostles, ascribes to him 
narrations respecting the discourses of Jesus, and associates him with 
"John the Elder." (See Introduction, p. 58.) 

294 Now Kuryetein, or Kereitein. 

295 The incident told in John 19: 25 T 27 [the adoption by John of the 
mother of Jesus] seems to imply that his own brothers stood aloof from 
him during all his public life. If we assume more than one James in the 
family circle, we may trace an allusion to the unfriendliness of "James 
the Lord's brother" in Galatians 2: 6, comparing 1: 19 and 2: 9, 11. 

296 See ante, p. 95. 

297 Matt. 27: 56; Mark 15: 40; John 19: 25. 

298 Acts 1: 14. Comp. Luke 1: 28; 2: 25, which already show great 
respect for Mary. 

299 John 19: 25-27. 

300 See ante, p. 95. 

301 Julius Africanus, in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 1: 7. 

113 



LIFE OF JESUS 

him became a marked advantage, in the same manner as, 
after the death of Mahomet, the wives and daughters of the 
prophet, who had had no importance in his lifetime, be- 
came great authorities. 

In this friendly group Jesus evidently had his favour- 
ites, and, so to speak, an inner circle. The two sons of 
Zebedee, James and John, seem to have been in the front 
rank. They were full of fire and passion. Jesus had aptly 
surnamed them " sons of thunder," on account of their ex- 
cessive zeal, which, had it controlled the thunder, would 
have made use of it too often. 302 John especially appears 
to have been on familiar terms with Jesus. It may be that 
the disciples who gradually grouped themselves around 
the second son of Zebedee, and apparently wrote his mem- 
oirs in a manner that scarcely dissimulates the interests of 
the school, have exaggerated the warm affection which Jesus 
bore him. 303 The most significant fact however is that, in 
the synoptic Gospels, Simon Bar-Jonah or Peter, James 
son of Zebedee, and John his brother, form a sort of privy 
council, which Jesus summons at certain times, when he 
suspects the faith and intelligence of the others. 304 It 
seems, moreover, that they were all three associated in their 
trade as fishermen. 305 The affection of Jesus for Peter was 
very deep." The character of the latter — straightforward, 
sincere, impulsive — pleased Jesus, who at times permitted 
himself to smile at his headstrong manner. Peter, who was 

302 Mark 3: 17; 9: 37-39; 10' 35-40; and Luke 9: 49, 50, 54-56. Th 
Apocalypse exhibits the same quality, especially in chaps. 2 and 3, in 
which personal animosity overflows. Compare the fanatic incident 
reported by Irenseus, Adv. hcer., 3, 3: 4. 

303 John 8: 23; 18: 15; 19: 26; 27; 20: 2, 4; 21: 7, 20-24. 

304 Matt. 17: 1; 26: 37; Mark 5: 37; 9: 1; 13. 3; 14: 33; Luke 9: 28. 
A notion very early prevailed that Jesus had imparted to these three 
disciples a secret doctrine, a gnosis. It is remarkable that the Gospel 
ascribed to John never once mentions his brother James. 

305 Matt. 4: 18-22; Luke 5: 10; John 21: 2-8. 

114 



THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 

little of a mystic, told the master his simple doubts, his 
prejudices, and his entirely human weaknesses, 306 with an 
honest frankness which recalls that of the Sieur de Join- 
ville towards St. Louis. Jesus reproved him in a friendly 
way that showed his confidence and esteem. As to John, 
his youth, his enthusiasm, and his vivid imagination, must 
have had great charm. 307 The personality of this extraor- 
dinary man, who exerted so strong an influence on infant 
Christianity, only developed itself later. If he were not 
the author of the strange Gospel which bears his name, 
and, despite its erroneous ideas on many points in the char- 
acter of Jesus, contains such priceless information, it is at 
least possible that he may have influenced its production. 
He was the biographer of Jesus, as Plato was of Socrates. 
Accustomed to shuffle his recollections with the fevered dis- 
quietude of an ecstatic soul, he transformed his Master 
while he believed he was describing him, thus furnishing 
clever forgers with the pretext of an alleged document, in 
the composition of which perfect good faith has apparently 
not been shown. 

No hierarchy, properly speaking, existed in the new sect. 
They had ail to call each other " brothers " ; and Jesus 
absolutely forbade titles of superior rank, such as rabbi, 
master, father — he alone being Master, and God alone be- 
ing Father. 308 The greatest among them ought to be the 
servant of the others. Simon Bar- Jonah, however, was 
distinguished amongst his fellows by a peculiar degree of 
importance. Jesus lived in his house and taught in his 
boat ; 309 his home was the centre of Gospel preaching. By 

s 08 Matt. 14 : 28 ; 16 : 22. Mark 8 : 32, 33. 

307 He appears to have lived till about a.d. 100. See John 21 : 15-23, 
and the authorities in Eusebius Hist. eccl. 3: 20, 23. The Apocalypse 
was probably written by him. (See note 302 .) 

308 Matt. 18 : 4 ; 20 : 25, 26 ; 23 : 8-12. Mark 9 : 34 ; 10 : 42-46. 

309 Luke 5: 3. 

1115 



LIFE OF JESUS 

outsiders he was regarded as the chief of the flock; and it 
was to him that the overseers of the tolls applied for the 
taxes which were due from the community. 310 He had been 
the first to recognise Jesus as the Messiah. 311 In a moment 
of unpopularity, Jesus asking of his disciples, " Would ye 
also go away? " Simon answered, " Lord, to whom shall we 
go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." 312 Jesus at 
various times granted him a certain priority in his 
church, 313 and gave him the Syrian surname of Kephas 
(stone), by which he wished to signify that he made him 
the corner-stone of the edifice. 314 At one time he seems 
even to promise him " the keys of the kingdom of heaven," 
and to grant him the right of pronouncing upon earth de- 
cisions which should always be ratified in eternity. 315 

There can be no doubt that this priority of Peter excited 
a little jealousy. Jealousy was especially kindled in view 
of the future, and of that kingdom of God in which all the 
disciples would be seated upon thrones, on the right and 
left of the Master, to judge the twelve tribes of Israel. 318 
They asked themselves who would then be nearest to the 
Son of man, and act, so to speak, as his prime minister and 
assessor. The two sons of Zebedee aspired to this rank. 
Brooding over thoughts of this kind, they prompted their 
mother Salome, who one day took Jesus aside and asked 
him for the two places of honour for her sons. 317 Jesus 
evaded the request by his habitual maxim that he who ex- 

810 Matt. 17:24. 

311 Matt. 16: 16, 17. 

312 John 6: 68-70. 

313 Matt. 10: 2; Luke 22: 32; John 21: 15-19; Acts 1: 2, 5 et sea- 
Gal. 1: 18, and 2: 7, 8. 

314 Matt. 16: 18; John 1:42. 

3 J 5 Matt. 16: 19. Elsewhere, it is true (Matt. 18: 18), the same power 
is given to all the apostles. 

316 Matt. 18: 1^., 18-20; Mark 10: 35-40; Luke 9: 46; 22: 30. 

317 Matt. 20: 20-23; Mark 10: 35^4. 

116 



THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 

alted himself should be humbled, and that the kingdom 
of heaven would be possessed by the lowly. This occa- 
sioned some talk in the community; and there was great 
murmuring against James and John. 318 The same rivalry 
seems to show itself in the Gospel of John, where the sup- 
posed narrator unceasingly declares himself to have been 
" the disciple whom Jesus loved," to whom the Master in 
dying confided his mother, and where he seeks to place him- 
self near Simon Peter — at times to put himself before him 
on important occasions, in narrating which the older evan- 
gelists had omitted to mention his name. 319 

Among the preceding persons, all those of whom we 
know anything had begun by being fishermen. In a country 
of simple habits where every one worked, this employment 
was not of so extremely humble a nature as the rhetoric 
of preachers would make it, the better to display the mirac- 
ulous origin of Christianity. But at all events, none of 
the disciples belonged to a high social class. Only a cer- 
tain Levi, son of Alpheus, and perhaps the apostle Mat- 
thew, had been publicans. 320 But those to whom this name 
was given in Judaea were not the farmers-general of taxes, 
men of high rank (always Roman patricians) who were 
called at Rome publicani. 321 They were the agents of these 
farmers-general, employes of low rank, simply officers of 
the customs. The great route from Acre to Damascus, one 

318 Mark 10: 41. 

319 John 18: 15, 16; 19: 26, 27; 20: 2-4; 21: 7, 20, 21. Compare 
1 : 35-37, where one of the disciples not named is probably John. 

320 Matt. 9: 9; 10: 3; Mark 2: 14; 3: 18; Luke 5: 27; 6: 15; Acts 1: 13; 
Ebion. Gosp. in Epiph. 30: 13. The original account names "Levi son 
of Alphseus." The later compiler of the first Gospel substituted the 
name "Matthew," from a tradition of more or less weight that this apostle 
had exercised that charge (Matt. 10: 3). In the Gospel as it now stands, 
we must remember, the only part that can be from the apostle consists of 
the discourses of Jesus. (See Papias in Euseb. Hist eccl. 3: 34.) 

321 Cicero, De provinc. consul. 5; Pro Plancio 9; Tacitus, Ann. 4:6; 
Pliny, Hist. Nat, 12: 32; Appian, Bell. civ. 2: 13. 

117 



LIFE OF JESUS 

of the most ancient trade routes of the world, which crossed 
Galilee, skirting the lake/ 22 made employes of this kind 
very numerous there. At Capernaum, which was perhaps 
on the highroad, there was a numerous staff. 323 This pro- 
fession is never popular, but among the Jews it was con- 
sidered quite criminal. Taxation, being new to them, was 
the sign of their subjection; one party, that of Judas the 
Gaulonite, maintained that to pay it was an act of pagan- 
ism. So too the customs officers were abhorred by the 
zealots of the Law. They were only classed with assas- 
sins, highway robbers, and people of abandoned life. 324 
Jews who accepted such offices were excommunicated, and 
deprived of the right to make a will; their property was 
accursed, and the casuists forbade the changing of money 
with them. 325 These poor men, outcasts of society, had no 
social intercourse outside their own class. Jesus accepted 
a dinner offered him by Levi, at which there were, accord- 
ing to the language of the time, " many publicans and sin- 
ners." This caused grave scandal. 326 In these houses of 
ill-repute there was a risk of meeting bad society. We shall 
often see him thus, caring little if he shocked the prejudices 
of respectable people, seeking to raise the classes humil- 
iated by the orthodox, and thus exposing himself to the 

322 It continued famous down to the time of the Crusades, under the 
name of the "Seaway" (via maris): cf. Isaiah 9: 1; Matt. 4: 13-15; 
Tobit 1:1. The road cut in the rock near Ain-et-Tin, made (as I think) 
part of it, the highway thence turning toward the Bridge of the Daughters 
of Jacob, as to-day. Part of the road from Ain-et-Tin to this bridge is 
of ancient construction. 

323 Matt. 9: 9—13 

324 Matt. 5: 46, 47; 9: 10, 11; 11: 19; 18: 17; 21: 31, 32. Mark 2: 
15, 16. Luke 5: 30; 7: 34; 15: 1; 18: 2; 19: 7. Lucian, Nekyamard, 11. 
Dio Chrysost. Oral. 4: 85: 14: 269 (ed. Emperius). Mishna, Nedarim, 
3:4. 

325 Mishna, Baba Jcama, 10: 1; Jerusalem Talmud, Demai, 2: 3; 
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 25 b. 

328 Luke 5: 29-32. 

118 



THE DISCIPLES OF JESUS 

most scathing reproaches of the devotees. The Pharisees 
had made endless observances and a species of external 
" respectability " the price of salvation. The true moralist 
who came proclaiming that God cares for one thing alone 
— righteousness in feeling, must of necessity have been 
welcomed with blessings by all souls that had escaped the 
corruption of official hypocrisy. 

Jesus owed these numerous conquests to the infinite 
charm of his personality and speech. A searching phrase, 
a glance cast upon a simple conscience which only needed 
awakening, gave him an ardent disciple. Sometimes Jesus 
employed an innocent artifice which was also used by Joan 
of Arc: he affected to know something of the inner life of 
him whom he wished to gain, or else he would remind him 
of some circumstance dear to his heart. It was thus that 
he is said to have attracted Nathanael, Peter, and the 
woman of Samaria. 327 Concealing the true source of his 
power — his superiority over all those who surrounded him 
— he permitted people to believe (in order to satisfy the 
ideas of the time, ideas in which moreover he himself fully 
shared) that a revelation from on high revealed all secrets 
to him and laid open all hearts. Every one thought that 
Jesus lived in a sphere higher than that of humanity. It 
was said that he conversed on the mountains with Moses 
and Elijah; 328 it was believed that in his moments of soli- 
tude the angels came to give him homage, and establish a 
supernatural intercourse between him and heaven. 329 

327 John 1: 42, 43, 48-50; 4: 17-19; cf. Mark 2: 8; 3: 2-4; John 2: 
24,25. 

328 Matt. 17: 3; Mark 9:3; Luke 9: 30, 31. 
320 Matt. 4: 11; Mark 1:13. 



119 



CHAPTER X 

Preaching by the Lake 

Such was the group which gathered around Jesus on the 
shores of the lake of Tiberias. In it the aristocracy was 
represented by a customs-officer and by the wife of one of 
Herod's stewards. The rest were fishermen and common 
folk. Their ignorance was extreme, their intelligence 
feeble; they believed in apparitions and spirits. 330 Not one 
element of Greek culture had reached this first assembly of 
the saints, and they were but little instructed in Jewish 
learning; but warmth of heart and good- will overflowed. 
The beautiful climate of Galilee made the life of these 
honest fishermen a constant delight. Simple, good, and 
happy as they were, they truly preluded the kingdom of 
God — rocked gently on their delightful little sea, or at night 
sleeping on its shores. We do not realise for ourselves the 
charm of a life which thus glides away under the open sky 
— the sweet and strong love given by this perpetual con- 
tact with nature, and the dreams of nights passed thus in 
the clear starlight under an azure dome of limitless ex- 
panse. It was on such a night that Jacob, with his head 
resting upon a stone, saw in the stars the promise of an in- 
numerable posterity, and the mysterious ladder by which 
the Elohim came and went from heaven to earth. At the 
time of Jesus the heavens were not shut nor was the earth 
grown cold. The clouds still opened over the Son of man; 
the angels ascended and descended above his head (John 
1:51); vision of the kingdom of God was vouchsafed every- 

330 Matt. 14: 26; Mark 6: 49; Luke 24: 39; John 6: 19. 
120 



PREACHING BY THE LAKE 

where, for man carried it in his heart. These simple souls 
contemplated with clear and gentle gaze the universe in its 
ideal source. It may be that the world unveiled its secret 
to the divinely lucid conscience of these happy children, 
who by their purity of heart deserved one day to stand 
in God's presence. 

Jesus lived with his disciples almost always in the open 
air. Sometimes he got into a boat, and from it taught his 
hearers, who were crowded upon the shore. 331 Sometimes 
he sat upon the mountains which border on the lake, where 
the air is pure and the horizon luminous. Thus the faith- 
ful band led a joyous wandering life, gathering the in- 
spirations of the Master in their first bloom. Sometimes 
an innocent doubt was raised, a mildly sceptical question 
put; but Jesus, with a smile or a look, silenced the ob- 
jection. At every step — in the passing cloud, the germinat- 
ing seed, the ripening corn — they saw a sign of the king- 
dom drawing nigh, they believed themselves on the eve of 
seeing God, of being masters of the world; tears were 
turned into joy; it was the advent upon earth of universal 
consolation. 

"Blessed," said the master, "are the poor in spirit: for 
theirs is the kingdom of heaven. 

"Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be com- 
forted. 

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth. 

"Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness : for they shall be filled. 

"Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. 

"Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God. 

"Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called 
sons of God. 

"Blessed are they that have been persecuted for 
331 Matt. 13: 1, 2; Mark 3: 9; 4: 1; Luke 5: 3. 
121 



LIFE OF JESUS 

righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of 
heaven." 332 

His preaching was soft and gentle, inspired with a 
feeling for nature and the perfume of the fields. He loved 
flowers, and based on them his most charming lessons. 
The birds of the air, the sea, the mountains, and the games 
of children were in turn touched on in his teaching. There 
was no trace of Greek influence in his style; it approached 
much more nearly to that of the Hebrew parabolists, and 
especially of the aphorisms of the Jewish doctors, his con- 
temporaries, such as we read in the PirJce Aboth. His 
teachings were not developed very far, and formed a 
species of propositions in the style of the Koran, which, 
pieced together, afterwards went to form the long dis- 
courses written by Matthew. 333 No transition united these 
diverse fragments ; generally however the same inspiration 
breathed through them and gave them their unity. It was 
above all in parable that the Master excelled. There was 
nothing in Judaism to give him a model for this delightful 
feature. 334 He created it. It is true that in the Buddhist 
books we find parables of exactly the same tone and con- 
struction as the Gospel parables ; 335 but it is difficult to 
admit that a Buddhist influence has been exercised in the 
latter. The spirit of mildness and depth of feeling which 
animated nascent Christianity and Buddhism alike, per- 
haps suffice to explain these similarities. 

A total indifference to external life and the vain super- 
fluous luxuries in furniture and dress, which our drearier 

332 Matt. 5: 3-10; Luke 6: 20-25. 

333 These are the "Lord's discourses" (\6yia Kvpiand) spoken of by 
Papias in Eusebius (3: 39). 

334 The apologue, such as we find it in Judges 9: 8-15 [the bramble] 
and 2 Sam. 12: 1-6 [the ewe-lamb], has only a formal likeness to the 
Gospel parable, whose real originality is in the feeling that runs through 
it. The parables of the Midraschin are also of quite another spirit. 

335 For example, the "Lotus of the true Law," 1 and 4. 

122 



PREACHING BY THE LAKE 

countries make necessary to us, was the consequence of 
the sweet and simple life lived in Galilee. Cold climates, 
by compelling man to a perpetual conflict with external 
nature, cause him to attach much importance to the quest 
of comfort. On the other hand, lands that awaken few 
desires are lands of idealism and of poesy. In such coun- 
tries the accessories of life are insignificant compared with 
the pleasure of being alive. The embellishment of the 
house is superfluous, for it is inhabited as little as possible. 
The abundant and regular food of less generous climates 
would be considered heavy and disagreeable. And as to 
luxury in dress, what can rival that which God has given to 
the earth and the birds of the air? Labour in climates of 
this kind seems useless; its return is not worth the expendi- 
ture of energy it requires. The beasts of the field are 
better clad than the richest of men, and they do nothing. 
This disdain which, when it has not idleness as its motive, 
greatly tends to loftiness of soul, inspired Jesus with some 
charming apologues : — " Lay not up for yourselves treasures 
upon earth," said he, " where moth and rust doth consume, 
and where thieves break through and steal; but lay up for 
yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust 
doth consume, and where thieves do not break through nor 
steal: for where thy treasure is, there will thy heart be 
also. . . . No man can serve two masters: for either he 
will hate the one and love the other; or else he will hold 
to one and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and 
mammon. Therefore I say unto you, Be not anxious for 
your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet 
for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more 
than the food, and the body than the raiment? Behold 
the birds of the heaven, that they sow not, neither do they 
reap, nor gather into barns; and your heavenly Father 
feedeth them. Are not ye of much more value than they? 
123 



LIFE OF JESUS 

And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto 
his stature? And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? 
Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil 
not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even 
Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 
But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which 
to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not 
much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Be not there- 
fore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall 
we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? For after 
all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly 
Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But 
seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all 
these things shall be added unto you. Be not therefore 
anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for 
itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof." 336 

This essentially Galilean feeling had an important in- 
fluence on the destiny of the infant sect. The happy flock, 
trusting to the heavenly Father for the satisfaction of its 
needs as its first principle, looked upon the cares of life 
as an evil which stifles in man the germ of all good. 337 
Each day they asked of God the bread for the morrow. 338 
Why lay up treasure? The kingdom of God was at hand. 
" Sell that ye have and give alms," said the Master. "Make 
for yourselves purses which wax not old, a treasure in the 
heavens that faileth not." 339 What more foolish than to 
heap up treasures for heirs whom thou wilt never be- 

336 Matt. 6: 19-34; Luke 12: 22-34; and 16: 13. Compare the precepts 
in Luke 10: 7, 8 — expressed with the same simplicity — with the Baby- 
lonian Talmud, Sota, 48 b. 

337 Matt. 13: 22; Mark 4: 19; Luke 8: 14. 

338 Matt. 6: 2; Luke 11: 3. This is the meaning of "daily bread," 
iiri-oiaios. 

339 Luke 12: 33, 34. Compare the fine maxims, much like these, 
which the Talmud puts in the mouth of Monobarus (Jerusalem Talmud, 
Peak, 15 6). 

124 



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LIFE OF JESUS 



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PREACHING BY THE LAKE 

hold? 340 As an example of human folly, Jesus loved to 
quote the case of a man who, after having enlarged his 
barns and amassed wealth for long years, died before hav- 
ing enjoyed it. 341 The brigandage, which was deeply 
rooted in Galilee, 342 gave much force to views of this kind. 
The poor man who did not suifer from his poverty should 
regard himself as favoured by God; whilst the rich man, 
having a less sure possession, was the true pauper. In our 
societies, founded on a very rigorous conception of private 
property, the position of the poor is horrible; they have 
literally no place under the sun. There are no flowers, no 
grass, no shade, except for him who possesses the earth. 
In the East, these are gifts of God which belong to no man. 
The proprietor has but a slender privilege; nature is the 
inheritance of all. 

In this, moreover, infant Christianity only followed in 
the footsteps of the Jewish sects which practised a monastic 
life. A communistic element entered into these sects, Es- 
senes and Therapeutae, which were held in equal disfavour 
by Pharisees and Sadducees. The Messianic doctrine, an 
entirely political question among the orthodox Jews, was 
with them an entirely social question. By means of a 
gentle, disciplined, contemplative existence, the liberty of 
the individual had full scope, and these little churches in 
which, not without reason perhaps, some imitation of neo- 
Pythagorean institutions has been suspected, believed they 
were inaugurating the heavenly kingdom upon earth. The 
thought of Utopias of blessed life, founded on the brother- 
hood of men and pure worship of the true God, haunted 
lofty souls, and on all sides produced bold and sincere but 
short-lived attempts at realisation. 343 

3 *°Lukel2:20. 
341 Luke 12: 16-19. 

a*' Josephus, Antiq., 17, 10: 4, 5; Life, 11, 12. 

343 Philo, Quod omnis bonus liber, De vita contemplativa. Josephus, 
125 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Jesus, whose relations with the Essenes are difficult to 
determine exactly (resemblances in history not always im- 
plying relations), was certainly on this point their brother. 
Community of goods was for some time the rule in the new 
society. 344 Covetousness was the cardinal sin ; 345 but care 
must be taken to note that the sin of covetousness, against 
which Christian morality has been so severe, was then sim- 
ple attachment to private property. The first condition of 
becoming a disciple of Jesus was to sell one's goods and 
to give the proceeds to the poor. Those who drew back 
from this extreme measure were not permitted to enter the 
community. 346 Jesus often repeated that he who has found 
the kingdom of God ought to buy it at the price of all his 
possessions, and that, in so doing, he still makes an advan- 
tageous bargain. " The kingdom of heaven is like unto a 
treasure hidden in the field; which a man found and hid; 
and in his joy he goeth and selleth all that he hath, and 
buyeth that field. Again, the kingdom of heaven is like 
unto a man that is a merchant seeking goodly pearls; and 
having found one pearl of great price, he went and sold all 
that he had and bought it." 347 Alas! the practical draw- 
backs of the theory were not long in making themselves felt. 
A treasurer was required, and Judas of Kerioth was chosen 
for that office. Rightly or wrongly, he was accused of steal- 
ing from the common purse ; 348 a heavy burden of hatred 
accumulated on his head. 

Sometimes the Master, more versed in things of heaven 
than those of earth, taught a still more singular political 

Antiq., 18, 1:5; Wars, 2, 8: 2-13. Pliny, Hid. Nat. 5: 17; Epiphan. 
Adv. hcer. 10, 19, 29: 5. 

344 Acts 4: 32, 34-37; 5: 1-11. 

345 Matt. 13: 22; Luke 12: 15-21. 

346 Matt. 19: 21; Mark 10: 21, 22, 28-30; Luke 18: 22, 23, 28. 

347 Matt. 13: 44-46. 
348 Johnl2:6. 

126 



PREACHING BY THE LAKE 

economy. In a strange parable, a steward is praised for 
having made himself friends among the poor at the expense 
of his master, in order that the poor in their turn might 
secure his entrance into the kingdom of heaven. The poor 
in fact, necessarily being the almoners of this kingdom, will 
only receive those who have given alms to them. A prudent 
man, who takes thought of the future, ought therefore to 
seek to gain their favour. " And the Pharisees," says the 
Evangelist, " who were lovers of money, heard all these 
things : and they scoffed at him." 349 Did they also hear 
the formidable parable which follows? " Now there was a 
certain rich man, and he was clothed in purple and fine 
linen, faring sumptuously every day: and a certain beggar 
named Lazarus was laid at his gate, full of sores, and de- 
siring to be fed with the crumbs that fell from the rich 
man's table; yea, even the dogs came and licked his sores. 
And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and that he was 
carried away by the angels into Abraham's bosom: and the 
rich man also died, and was buried. And in Hades he 
lifted up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham 
afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. And he cried and 
said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Laza- 
rus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool 
my tongue; for I am in anguish in this flame. But Abra- 
ham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime re- 
ceivedst thy good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil 
things: but now here he is comforted and thou art in an- 
guish." 350 What could be more just! Later, this parable 
was called that of the " wicked rich man." But it is purely 
and simply the parable of the " rich man." He is in hell 

349 Luke 16: 14. 

350 Luke 16 : 19-25. Luke, as we see (compare 6 : 20, 21, 25, 26), has a 
very marked leaning to communism, and has, no doubt, exaggerated this 
trait in the teaching of Jesus. But it is also sufficiently pronounced in 
Matthew's \6yia. 

127 



LIFE OF JESUS 

because he is rich, because he does not give his wealth to 
the poor, because he dines well, while other men at his 
door dine badly. Latterly, taking a less exaggerated view 
for the moment, Jesus does not make it obligatory to sell 
one's goods, and give them to the poor, save as a counsel of 
perfection; but he still makes the terrible declaration: " It 
is easier for a camel to go through a needle's eye, than for 
a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God." 351 

In all this an admirable idea of profound import gov- 
erned Jesus, as well as the band of joyous children his 
followers, and made him for eternity the true creator of the 
peace of the soul, the great consoler of life. In freeing 
man from what he called " the cares of this world," Jesus 
might go to excess and injure the essential conditions of 
human society; but he founded that spiritual exaltation 
which for centuries has filled souls with joy in the midst 
of this vale of tears. He saw with perfect clarity of vision 
that man's recklessness, his lack of philosophy and mo- 
rality, most often proceed from the distractions which he 
permits himself, and the cares, multiplied beyond measure 
by civilisation, which harass him. 352 The Gospel has thus 
been the supreme remedy for the dull weariness of common 
life, a perpetual sursum corda, a powerful agent in making 
men forget the miserable cares of earth, a gentle appeal 
like that which Jesus whispered in the ear of Martha, 
" Martha, Martha, thou art anxious and troubled about 
many things; but one thing is needful." 353 Thanks to 
Jesus, the dullest existence, that most absorbed by sad or 

361 Matt. 19: 24; Mark 10: 25; Luke 18: 25; Gospel of Hebrews: 
Hilgenfeld, N. T. extra can. rec. 4: 17. This proverbial phrase is found 
in the Talmud (Babylonian Berakoih, 55 b, Baba metsia 38 b) and the 
Koran (Sura, 7: 38). Origen and the Greek expositors, not knowing the 
Semitic proverb, have wrongly taken the word to mean a cable (kc(/uA.os). 

352 Matt. 13:22. 

353 Luke 10: 41, 42. 

128 



PREACHING BY THE LAKE 

humiliating duties, has had its glimpse of heaven. In our 
busy civilisation the memory of the free life of Galilee has 
been like perfume from another world, like the " dew of 
Hermon/' 354 which has kept drought and grossness from 
entirely invading the fields of God. 

354 Psalm 133: 3. 



129 



CHAPTER XI 

The Kingdom of the Poor 

These maxims, good for a land where life is nourished by 
the air and the light, and this subtle communism of a band 
of God's children resting in faith on the bosom of their 
Father, might be fitted for a simple sect, upheld by the 
constant expectation that its Utopia was about to be realised. 
But it is clear that they could not be attractive to society 
as a whole. Jesus, indeed, very soon understood that the 
official world of his time would by no means lend its sup- 
port to his kingdom. He took his resolution with extreme 
daring. Leaving the world, with its hard heart and narrow 
prejudices, on one side, he turned towards the simple. 
A vast rearrangement of classes was to take place. The 
Kingdom of God was made — (1) for children and those 
like them; (2) for the world's outcasts, victims of that 
social arrogance which repulses the good but humble man; 
(3) for heretics and schismatics, publicans, Samaritans, and 
the pagans of Tyre and Sidon. A vigorously conceived 
parable explained this appeal to the people and justified 
it. 355 A king has prepared a wedding feast, and sends his 
servants to seek those who have been invited. Each one 
excuses himself; some even maltreat the messengers. Then 
the king takes a decisive step. The people of rank have not 
accepted his invitation. Be it so; his guests shall be the 
first-comers — the people gathered from the highways and 
byways, the poor, the beggars, the lame; it matters not 
who, for the room must be filled. " For I say unto you," 

355 Matt. 22: 2-14; Luke 14: 16-24; cf. Matt. 8: 11, 12; 20: 33-il. 
130 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

said he, " that none of those men which were bidden shall 
taste of my supper " (Luke 14: 24). 

Pure Ebionism then — the doctrine that the poor (ebionim) 
alone will be saved, that the reign of the poor is at hand — 
was the doctrine of Jesus. " Woe unto you that are rich/' 
he said, " for ye have received your consolation. Woe unto 
you, ye that are full now! for ye shall hunger. Woe unto 
you, ye that laugh now ! for ye shall mourn and weep " 
(Luke 6: 24, 25). " And he said to him also that had bid- 
den him, When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not 
thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsmen, nor rich 
neighbours, lest haply they also bid thee again, and a 
recompense be made thee. But when thou makest a feast, 
bid the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind : and thou shalt 
be blessed; because they have not wherewith to recompense 
thee; for thou shalt be recompensed in the resurrection of 
the just " (Luke 14: 12-14). It was perhaps in a like sense 
that he often repeated, "Be good bankers," 356 — that is to 
say, make good investments for the Kingdom of God by 
giving your wealth to the poor in conformity with the old 
proverb, " He that hath pity upon the poor, lendeth unto 
the Lord" (Prov. 19:17). 

There was nothing new indeed in all this. The most 
exalted democratic movement in human annals (and too 
the only one which has succeeded, for it alone has main- 
tained its position in the domain of pure thought) had long 
agitated the Jewish race. The thought that God is the 
avenger of the poor and weak against the rich and powerful 
is to be found on every page of the writings of the Old 
Testament. The history of Israel is, of all histories, that 
in which the popular spirit has been most constantly in 

358 A saying preserved by very ancient tradition, and often quoted 
(Clement of Alexandria, Strom. 1: 28). It is also found in Origen, St. 
Jerome, and a great number of the Fathers of the Church. 

131 



LIFE OF JESUS 

power. Prophets, true, and, in one sense, the boldest of 
tribunes, thundered without ceasing against the great, and 
established a close connection, on the one hand, between 
the words " rich, impious, violent, wicked," on the other, 
between the words " poor, gentle, humble, pious." 357 Under 
the Seleucidae, the aristocrats, having almost all apostatised 
and gone over to Hellenism, such associations of ideas only 
became stronger. The Book of Enoch contains maledic- 
tions still more violent than those of the Gospel against 
the worldly, the wealthy, and the powerful. 358 In it luxury 
is depicted as a crime. The " Son of man," in this strange 
apocalypse, dethrones kings, tears them from their volup- 
tuous life, and casts them into hell. 359 The initiation of 
Judaea to secular life, and the recent introduction of an 
entirely worldly element of luxury and comfort, provoked a 
furious reaction in favour of patriarchal simplicity. " Woe 
unto you who despise the humble dwelling and inheritance 
of your fathers ! Woe unto you who build your palaces with 
the sweat of others ! Each stone, each brick of which it is 
built, is a sin." 360 The name of " poor " (ebion) became a 
synonym of saint, of " friend of God." It was the name by 
which the Galilean disciples of Jesus loved to call them- 
selves; for a long time it was the name of the Judaising 
Christians of Batanea and the Hauran (Nazarenes, He- 
brews) who remained faithful to the language, as well as to 
the primitive teaching of Jesus, and boasted that they had in 
their midst the descendants of his family. 361 At the close of 

357 See especially Amos 2: 6; Isaiah 63: 9; Psalms 25: 9, 37: 11, and 
69:33; also the Hebrew lexicon under the words pny, D^IH, VGJty 

Ton, uy.^y in. rrsK (ebion). 

358 Chaps. 62, 63, 97, 100, 104. 

359 Chap. 46: 4-8 (possibly a Christian interpolation). 

360 Enoch 99: 13, 14. 

361 Julius Africanus in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 1:7; Euseb. De situ et nom. 
he. hebr. under Xo>/8<£; Origen c. Celsum, 2: 1, and 5: 61; Epiphan. 
29: 7, 9, and 30: 2, 18. 

132 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

the second century these good sectaries, having remained 
outside the great current which had carried away all the 
other churches, were treated as heretics (Ebionites) and a 
pretended founder of their heresy (Ebion) was invented to 
explain their name. 362 

It might have been easily foreseen that this exaggerated 
taste for poverty could not last very long. It was one of 
those Utopian elements, always to be found mingled in the 
beginnings of great movements, which time rectifies. Cast 
into the midst of human society, Christianity could not fail 
to consent very easily to the reception of rich men into her 
bosom, just as Buddhism, in its origin exclusively monastic, 
soon began, as conversions multiplied, to admit the laity. 
But a birthmark is always kept. Although it quickly passed 
away and was forgotten, Ebionism left, in the whole history 
of Christian institutions, a leaven which has not been lost. 
The collection of the Logia, or discourses of Jesus, was 
formed, or at least completed, in the Ebionite centre of 
Batanea. 363 " Poverty " remained an ideal from which true 
descendants of Jesus were never afterwards separated. To 
possess nothing was the true evangelical state; mendicancy 
became a virtue, a state of holiness. The great Umbrian 
movement of the thirteenth century, which, of all attempts at 
religious construction, most resembles the Galilean move- 
ment, was entirely carried through in the name of poverty. 
Francis of Assisi, the one man who, by his exquisite good- 
ness, by his delicate, pure, and tender communion with 

362 See especially Origen c. Celswn, 2: 1; De principiis, 4: 22 (cf. 
Epiphan. 30: 17). Irenseus, Origen, Eusebius, and the Apostolical Con- 
stitutions know of no such person. The author of the Philosophumena 
[Hippolytus] seems to hesitate (7: 34, 35; 10: 22, 23). The imaginary 
Ebion gained currency through Tertullian, and still more through 
Epiphanius. All the fathers are agreed as to the etymology: *Efilwv = 
irruyps. 

363 Epiphan. 19, 29, 30 (especially 29: 9). 

133 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the life of the universe, beyond all others approached most 
closely to Jesus, was a poor man. The mendicant orders, 
and the innumerable communistic sects of the Middle Ages 
{Pauvres de Lyon, Begards, Bons-Hommes, Fratricelles, 
Humilies, Pauvres Evangeliques, Votaries of the Eternal 
Gospel) , claimed to be, and in fact were, the true disciples of 
Jesus. But, in this case too, the most impracticable dreams 
of the new religion were fruitful in results. Pious mendicity, 
of which our industrial and highly organised communities 
are so impatient, was, in its day and in a suitable climate, 
full of charm. To a multitude of mild and contemplative 
souls it offered the only fitting condition. To have made 
poverty an object of love and desire, to have exalted the 
beggar to the altar, and to have sanctified the garment of 
the poor man, was a master-touch which political economy 
may not appreciate, but in face of which no true moralist 
can remain indifferent. Mankind, in order to bear its 
burden, must needs believe that it is not paid entirely by 
wages. The greatest service that can be rendered it is to 
repeat often that it lives not by bread alone. 

Like all great men, Jesus was fond of common folk, and 
felt at his ease with them. To his mind the Gospel was 
made for the poor ; it was to them that he brought the good 
tidings of salvation. 364 He particularly esteemed all those 
whom orthodox Judaism disdained. Love of the people, 
pity for its powerlessness — the feeling of the democratic 
leader who feels the spirit of the multitude quick within 
him, and knows himself to be its natural interpreter — reveal 
themselves at every instant in his acts and sayings. 365 

The chosen flock in fact presented somewhat mingled 
characteristics, likely to astonish the rigorous moralist. It 
counted amongst its number people with whom a Jew who 

364 Matt. 10: 23; 11: 5; Luke 6: 20, 21. 

365 Matt. 9: 10-13; Luke 15: 1. 

134 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

had any respect for himself would have refused to asso- 
ciate. 366 It may be that Jesus found in this society, unaf- 
fected by ordinary conventions, more distinction of intellect 
and goodness of heart than he would have done in a pedantic 
and narrow-minded middle class, priding himself on its out- 
ward morality. The Pharisees, exaggerating the Mosaic 
injunctions, had come to believe themselves denied by 
contact with men less strict than themselves; with regard 
to their meals, they almost rivalled the puerile distinctions 
of caste in India. Despising such miserable aberrations of 
religious feeling, Jesus loved to eat with those who were its 
victims; by his side, at table were seen persons reputed to 
be of evil life, owing their reputation perhaps to the fact 
that they did not share the follies of the false devotees. 
The Pharisees and doctors protested against the scandal. 
" See," said they, " with what men he eats ! " Jesus re- 
turned subtle answers which exasperated the hypocrites. 
" They that are whole have no need of a physician; " 36T or 
again : " What man of you, having a hundred sheep, and 
having lost one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine 
in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost until he 
find it? And when he hath found it, he layeth it on 
his shoulders rejoicing." 368 Or again: "The Son of man 
is come to seek and to save that which was lost." 369 Or 
again: "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners." 370 
Lastly, there is the beautiful parable of the prodigal son, 
in which he who has fallen is represented as having a kind 
of right to be loved above him who has always been right- 
eous. Weak or guilty women, carried away with such 
charms, and realising, for the first time, the pleasures of 

366 Matt. 9:11; Mark 2: 16; Luke 5: 30. 

367 Matt. 9:12. 

368 Luke 15: 3-5. 

369 Luke 19: 10. 

370 Matt. 9: 13. 

135 



LIFE OF JESUS 

contact with virtue, freely approached him. People were 
surprised that he did not repulse them. " Now when the 
Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spake within 
himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have 
perceived who and what manner of woman this is which 
toucheth him, that she is a sinner." 371 Jesus replied by the 
parable of the creditor who forgives his debtors' unequal 
debts, in which he did not hesitate to prefer the lot of him 
to whom the greatest debt was remitted. 372 He appreciated 
states of soul only in proportion as they were inspired by 
love. Women with tearful hearts, through their sins inclined 
to feelings of humility, were nearer his kingdom than people 
of commonplace nature, who frequently have little merit 
in not having fallen. We may understand, on the other 
hand, how these tender souls, finding in their conversion 
to the sect an easy means of retrieving character, would 
passionately attach themselves to him. 

Far from seeking to soothe the murmurings stirred up by 
his contempt for the social susceptibilities of the time, he 
seemed to find pleasure in exciting them. Never did any 
one more loftily avow that disdain of the " world " which is 
the essential condition of great things and great originality. 
He forgave the rich man, but only when the rich man, 
owing to some prejudice, was held in disfavour by society. 373 
He greatly preferred men of dubiously respectable life and 
of small consideration in the eyes of the orthodox leaders. 
" Verily I say unto you that the publicans and the harlots 

371 Luke 7: 39. 

372 Luke 7: 37-50. Luke is fond of putting in relief all that refers to 
the pardon of sinners: see 10: 30-35; 15, 17: 16-19; 18: 10-14; 19: 2-10; 
23: 39-43. The story of the supper at Simon's house has been com- 
bined with that of the anointing which took place at Bethany a few days 
before the death of Jesus. But the pardon of the "woman that was 
a sinner" is an essential feature in the anecdotes of his life: compare 
John 8: 3-11; Papias in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 3: 39. 

373 Luke 19: 2-10. 

136 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came 
unto you in the way of righteousness and ye believed him 
not: but the publicans and the harlots believed him." 374 
One can imagine how galling the reproach of not having 
followed the good example set by prostitutes must have 
been to men who made a profession of seriousness and rigid 
morality. 

Jesus had no external affectation, and made no display of 
austerity. He did not shun pleasure; he willingly went to 
marriage feasts. One of his miracles was performed, it is 
said, to enliven a wedding in a small town. In the East wed- 
dings take place in the evening. Each of the guests carries 
a lamp ; the lights, coming and going, give a charming effect. 
Jesus liked these gay and animated scenes and drew parables 
from them. 375 Such conduct, compared with that of John the 
Baptist, gave offence. 376 One day, when the disciples of 
John and the Pharisees were keeping the fast, it was asked, 
" Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees 
fast, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto 
them, Can the sons of the bridechamber fast, while the 
bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bride- 
groom with them, they cannot fast. But the days will come 
when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and 
then will they fast in that day." 37T His gentle gaiety found 
constant expression in vivid ideas and amiable pleasantries. 
" Whereunto then," said he, " shall I liken the men of this 
generation, and to what are they like? They are like unto 
children that sit in the market-place and call one to another ; 
which say, We piped unto you, and ye did not dance; we 
wailed, and ye did not weep. 378 For John the Baptist is 

374 Matt. 21:31,32. 

375 Matt. 25:1-23. 

376 Mark 11: 18; Luke 5: 33. 

377 Matt. 9: 14-17; Mark 2: 18-22; Luke 5: 33-35. 
37 8 Words referring to some childish game. 

137 



LIFE OF JESUS 

come, eating no bread nor drinking wine, and ye say, He 
hath a devil. The Son of man is come eating and drinking, 
and ye say, Behold a gluttonous man and a wine-bibber, a 
friend of publicans and sinners. And wisdom is justified 
of all her children." 379 

He thus journeyed through Galilee in the midst of con- 
tinual festivities. He rode on a mule. In the East this is 
a good and safe method of travelling. The large black eyes 
of the animal, shaded by long eyelashes, give it a very gentle 
aspect. His disciples sometimes surrounded him with a 
kind of rustic pomp, at the expense of their garments which 
they used as carpets. They put them on the mule which 
carried him, or spread them on the ground in his path. 380 
When he entered a house it was considered a joy and a 
blessing. He stopped in villages and large farms, where 
he received warm hospitality. In the East, the house into 
which a stranger enters immediately becomes a public 
place. The whole village assembles in it, the children 
invade it, and, though driven away by the servants, always 
return. Jesus could not suffer these gentle hearers to be 
harshly treated. He had them brought to him and took 
them in his arms. 381 Mothers, encouraged by such a recep- 
tion, used to bring him their little ones, that he might touch 
them, 382 Women came to pour oil upon his head and per- 
fumes on his feet. His disciples would sometimes repulse 
them as troublesome; but Jesus, who loved ancient usages 
and all that showed simplicity of heart, made reparation 

379 That is, "the act speaks for itself." Matt. 11: 16-19; Luke 7: 
32-35. The proverb means that "men are blind; the works of God are 
made known by the works themselves." (Read fyywv, not t4kvoov, follow- 
ing the Vatican MS. B, and the Cod. Sinait. The reading in Matthew 
was probably corrected from that in Luke, which seemed easier.) 

380 Matt. 21:7, 8. 

381 Matt. 19: 13-15; Mark 9: 36, 37; Luke 18: 15, 16. 

382 Mark 10: 13-16; Luke 18: 15. 

138 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

for the unkindness done by his too zealous friends. He 
protected those who desired to do him honour. 383 So it was 
that children and women adored him. The reproach of 
alienating from their families these gentle, easily led 
creatures was one of the charges most frequently brought 
against him by his enemies. 384 

The new religion was thus, in many respects, a women's 
and children's movement. The latter were like a young 
guard about Jesus for the inauguration of his innocent 
kingship, and gave him little ovations which pleased him 
much, calling him " Son of David," crying Hosanna, 386 and 
bearing palms around him. Jesus, like Savonarola, perhaps 
made them serve as instruments for pious missions; he was 
very glad to see these young apostles, who did not com- 
promise him, rush to the front and give him titles which he 
did not dare to take himself. He let them speak, and, 
when he was asked if he heard, he evasively answered that 
the praise that comes from young lips is the most pleasing 
to God. 386 He lost no occasion of repeating that the little 
ones are sacred beings, 387 that the kingdom of God belongs 
to children, 388 that one must become a child to enter 
therein, 389 that one ought to receive it as a child, 390 that the 
heavenly Father hides his secrets from the wise and reveals 
them to little ones. 391 In his mind the idea of disciples 

383 Matt. 26: 7-13; Mark 14: 3-9; Luke 7: 37-50. 

384 See Marcion's addition to Luke 23: 2, in Epiphanius 42: 11. If 
Marcion's omissions are without critical importance, it is not so with 
his additions, when they proceed, not from his prepossessions, but 
from the state of the manuscripts he used. 

385 The cry uttered in the processions at the Feast of Tabernacles, 
with the waving of palms (Mishna, Sukka, 3: 9), a still existing custom. 

386 Matt. 21: 15, 16. 

387 Matt. 18: 5, 10, 14; Luke 17: 2. 

388 Matt. 19: 14; Mark 10: 14; Luke 18: 16. 

389 Matt. 18: 1-6; Mark 9: 33-41; Luke 9: 46. 

390 Mark 10: 15. 

391 Matt, ll": 25; Luke 10: 21. 

139 



LIFE OF JESUS 

is almost synonymous with that of children. 392 On one 
occasion when they had one of those quarrels for precedence 
which were not rare amongst them, Jesus took a little child, 
put him in their midst, and said to them, " Whosoever shall 
humble himself as this little child, the same is the greatest 
in the kingdom of heaven." 393 

It was childhood, in fact, in its divine spontaneity, in its 
simple bewilderment of joy, that took possession of the 
earth. Every man, at every moment, believed that the 
kingdom so greatly desired was at hand. Each one already 
saw himself seated on a throne at the side of the Master. 394 
They divided amongst themselves the places of honour in 
the new kingdom, 395 and sought to calculate the precise date 
of its coming. The new doctrine was called the " Good 
Tidings " ; it had no other name. An old word, paradise, 
which Hebrew, like all the languages of the East, had 
borrowed from the Persian, in which it originally designated 
the parks of the Achaemenidae, summed up the general 
dream, — a beautiful garden where the delightful life here 
below would be eternally prolonged. 396 

How long did this intoxication last? We cannot tell. 
No one during the course of these enchanted visions, meas- 
ured time any more than we measure a dream. Time was 
suspended in duration ; a week was as an age. But, whether 
it filled years or months, the dream was so beautiful that 
humanity has lived upon it ever since, and it is still our 
consolation to gather its weakened perfume. Never did so 
much gladness fill the heart of man. For a moment human- 
ity, in this, its most vigorous effort to soar above the world, 

392 Matt. 10: 42; 18: 5, 14; Mark 9: 36; Luke 17: 2. 
383 Matt. 18: 4; Mark 9: 33-36; Luke 9: 46-48. 

394 Luke 22: 30. 

395 Mark 10: 37, 40, 41. 

398 Luke 23: 43; 2 Cor. 12: 4. Carm. Sibyll. prooem., 86; Babylonian 
Talmud, Chagiga, 14 6. 

140 



THE KINGDOM OF THE POOR 

forgot the leaden weight which binds it to the earth, forgot 
the sorrows of the life below. Happy he to whom it has 
been granted to behold with his own eyes this divine blos- 
soming, and to share, if but for a day, the incomparable 
illusion! but yet more happy, Jesus would tell us, shall 
he be who, freed from all illusion, shall conjure up within 
himself the celestial vision, and, with no millenarian dreams, 
no chimerical paradise, no signs in the heavens, but by the 
uprightness of his will and the poetry of his soul, shall be 
able to create anew in his own heart the true kingdom of 
God! 



141 



CHAPTER XII 

The Embassy from John in Prison 

Whilst joyous Galilee was celebrating with feasting the 
coming of the Well-beloved, the sorrowful John, in his 
prison of Machero, was pining away with yearning and 
desire. The successes of the young Master, whom he had 
seen for some months among his followers, reached his 
ears. It was said that the Messiah predicted by the 
prophets, he who was to set up the kingdom of Israel once 
more, had come and was proving his presence in Galilee 
by marvellous works. John wished to inquire into the 
truth of this rumour, and, as he was in free communication 
with his disciples, he chose two of them to go to Jesus in 
Galilee. 397 

The two disciples found Jesus at the height of his fame. 
The atmosphere of joy fulness around him filled them with 
surprise. Accustomed to fasting, to incessant prayer, and 
to a life full of aspiration, they were astonished at finding 
themselves suddenly brought into the midst of the joys 
attending the welcome of the Messiah. 398 They gave Jesus 
their message: " Art thou he that cometh? Or look we for 
another " (Luke 7: 20) ? Jesus, who, from that time forth, 
had no longer any doubt with respect to his own position 
as the Messiah, enumerated to them the works which ought 
to characterise the coming of the kingdom of God — such as 
the healing of the sick, and the good tidings of speedy 
salvation preached to the poor. All these works he himself 
did. " And blessed is he," added Jesus, " who shall have 

397 Matt. 11; 2-11; Luke 7: 18-23. 

398 Matt. 9:14-17. 

142 



EMBASSY FROM JOHN IN PRISON 

no doubt concerning me" (Luke 7:23). Whether this 
answer reached John the Baptist before his death, or what 
effect it had on the austere ascetic, is not known. Did he 
die consoled in the certainty that he whom he had announced 
was already living, or did he remain dubious as to the mis- 
sion of Jesus? There is nothing to inform us. Seeing, 
however, that his school continued to exist for a considerable 
time contemporaneously with the Christian churches, there 
is reason to suppose that, notwithstanding his regard for 
Jesus, John did not look upon him as having realised the 
divine promises. Death moreover came to cut short his 
perplexities. The invincible freedom of the lonely ascetic 
was to crown his restless career of persecution with the only 
end which was worthy of it. 

The leniency which Antipas had at first shown towards 
John was not to last long. In the conversations which, 
according to Christian tradition, John had had with the 
tetrarch, he never ceased to tell him that his marriage was 
unlawful and that he ought to send Herodias away. 399 It is 
easy to imagine the hatred which the grand-daughter of 
Herod the Great must necessarily have had for this impor- 
tunate counsellor. She only waited an opportunity to ruin 
him. 

Her daughter, Salome, born of her first marriage, and, 
like herself, ambitious and dissolute, aided her in her 
designs. In that year (probably the year 30) Antipas was 
at Machero on the anniversary of his birthday. Herod the 
Great had had constructed in the interior of the fortress 
a magnificent palace, where the tetrarch frequently resided. 
There he gave a great feast, during which Salome performed 
one of those characteristic dances which, in Syria, were not 
considered as unbecoming a lady of distinction. Antipas 
being much pleased, asked the dancer what she most desired, 
909 Matt. 14: 4, 5; Mark 6: 18, 19; Luke 3: 19. 
143 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and she replied, at her mother's instigation: " I will that 
thou forthwith give me in a charger the head of John the 
Baptist." 400 Antipas was sorry, but he did not care to 
refuse. A guard took the dish, went and cut off the pris- 
oner's head, and brought it in. 401 

The disciples of the Baptist obtained his body and laid 
it in a tomb, but the people were much displeased. Six 
years after, Hareth, having attacked Antipas, in order to 
recover Machero and avenge his daughter's dishonour, 
Antipas was vanquished; and his defeat was generally 
looked upon as being a punishment for the murder of 
John. 402 

The news of John's death was carried to Jesus by the 
disciples of the Baptist. 403 The last step taken by John 
with regard to Jesus had effectually united the two schools 
in the closest bonds. Jesus, fearing an increase of ill-will on 
the part of Antipas, took precautions and retired into the 
desert, where many people followed him. 404 By the exercise 
of extreme frugality, the holy company found it possible to 
live there ; and in this a miracle was naturally seen. 405 From 
this time Jesus always spoke of John with redoubled admira- 
tion. He declared without hesitation 406 that he was more 
than a prophet, that the Law and the ancient prophets had 
had their force only until his coming, 407 that he had abro- 
gated them, but that the kingdom of heaven would abrogate 
him in turn. In short, he attributed to him a special place in 
the scheme of the Christian mystery, which constituted him 

400 A light tray or platter, such as are used in the East for serving food 
or drink. 

401 Matt. 14: 3-12; Mark 6: 14-29; Josephus, Antiq., 18, 5: 2. 

402 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 5: 1, 2. 

403 Matt. 14: 12. 

404 Matt. 14:13. 

405 Matt. 14: 15-21; Mark 6: 35-44; Luke 9: 12-17; John 6: 2-13. 
408 Matt. 11:7-11; Luke 7: 24-28. 
407 Matt. 11: 12, 13; Luke 16: 16. 

144 



EMBASSY FROM JOHN IN PRISON 

the link of union between the reign of the ancient covenant 
and that of the new kingdom. 

The prophet Malachi, whose opinion in this matter was 
eagerly cited/ 08 had with much force announced a precursor 
of the Messialx, who was to prepare men for the final regen- 
eration, a messenger who should come to make straight 
the ways before the chosen one of God. This messenger 
was none other than the prophet Elias, who, according to 
a widely-spread belief, was soon to descend from heaven, 
whither he had been borne, that he might prepare men by 
repentance for the great advent, and reconcile God with his 
people. 409 Sometimes with Elias was associated either the 
patriarch Enoch, to whom for one or two centuries high 
sanctity had been attributed, 410 or Jeremiah, 411 who was 
regarded as a kind of tutelary genius of the people, con- 
stantly engaged in praying for them before the throne of 
God. 412 This idea of the imminent resurrection of two 
ancient prophets to serve as heralds of the Messiah is also 
to be discovered in so striking a form in the doctrine of the 
Parsees, that we feel much inclined to believe that it came 
from Persia. 413 However this may be, it formed at the time 
of Jesus an integral part of the Jewish theories about the 
Messiah. It was admitted that the appearance of " two 

408 Mai. 3, 4 ; Eccles. 48: 10. (See above, chap. 6.) 

409 Matt. 11: 14; 17: 10. Mark 6: 15; 8: 28; 9: 10-13. Luke 9: 8, 19. 
John 1:21. Justin, Try ph. 49. 

410 Eccles. 44: 16. 4 Esdras 5: 26; 7: 28; comparing 14: 9, and the 
last lines of the Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, and Armenian versions (Volk- 
mar, Esdra proph. 212; Ceriani, Monum. sacr. and prof. 1, 2: 124; 
Armenian Bible of Zohrab, Venice, 1805, suppl. p. 25). 

411 Matt. 16: 14. 

412 2 Mace. 15:13-16. 

413 Anquetil-Duperron, citations from Zendavesta 1: 2, 46; corrected 
by Spiegel in Zeitschr. der deutsch. morgerdand. Gesellschaft, 1: 261 
et seq.; extract from J emasp-N ameh in Spiegel's Avesta, 1 : 34. None 
of the Parsee texts implying the resurrection of prophets or forerunners 
is ancient; but the ideas hinted in them seem to be much older. 

145 



LIFE OF JESUS 

faithful witnesses/' clad in garments of repentance, would 
be the prologue of the great drama which was about to be 
unfolded to the amazement of the universe. 414 

That, with these ideas, Jesus and his disciples could have 
no doubt as to the mission of John the Baptist is easily 
understood. When the scribes raised the objection that it 
was still a question whether the Messiah could really have 
come, since Elias had not yet appeared, 415 they replied that 
Elias had come, that John was Elias raised from the dead. 416 
By his manner of life, by his opposition to the political 
authorities in power, John in fact recalled that strange 
figure in the ancient history of Israel. 417 Jesus was not 
silent on the merits and excellences of his forerunner. He 
said that no greater man had been born amongst the chil- 
dren of men. He forcibly rebuked the Pharisees and the 
doctors for not having accepted his baptism, and for not 
being converted at his voice. 418 

The disciples of Jesus were faithful to these principles 
of their Master. Respect for John was a constant tradition 
during the first Christian generation. 419 He was reputed 
to be a relative of Jesus. 420 His baptism was regarded as 
the earliest event in all the gospel history and in some sort as 
the essential introduction to it. 421 In order to establish the 
latter's mission upon universally accepted testimony, it was 
asserted that John, when he first saw Jesus, proclaimed 

414 Rev. 11:3-6. 

415 Mark 9: 10. 

416 Matt. 9: 14; 17: 10-13. Mark 6: 15; 9: 10-12. Luke 9: 8. John 
1:21-25. 

417 Luke 1:17. 

418 Matt. 21 : 32; Luke 7: 29, 30. 

419 Acts 19: 4. 

420 Luke 1. 

421 Acts 1: 22; 10: 37, 38. This is fully explained if we admit, with 
the fourth Gospel (chap. 1.), that Jesus enlisted his first and most 
important disciples from the following of John. 

146 



EMBASSY FROM JOHN IN PRISON 

him the Messiah; that he recognised himself to be his in- 
ferior, unworthy to loosen the latchets of his shoes; that 
at first he declined to baptise him, maintaining that it was 
he who ought to be baptised by Jesus. 422 These were ex- 
aggerations which are sufficiently refuted by the dubious 
form of John's last message. 423 But, in a more general 
sense, John remains in the Christian legend what, in reality, 
he was — the austere harbinger, the gloomy preacher of re- 
pentance before the joy of the bridegroom's coming, the 
prophet who announces the kingdom of God and dies with- 
out beholding it. This giant of the early history of Chris- 
tianity, this eater of locusts and wild honey, this fierce re- 
dresser of wrongs, was the bitter wormwood which pre- 
pared the lips for the sweetness of the kingdom of God. 
His execution by Herodias inaugurated the era of Christian 
martyrs; he was the first witness for the new faith. The 
worldly, who in him recognised their true foe, could not 
suffer him to live; his mutilated corpse, stretched on the 
threshold of Christianity, showed the bloody path in which 
so many others were to follow after him. 

The school of John did not die with its founder. For 
some time it survived in a form distinct from that of Jesus, 
and at first the two were on good terms. Several years 
after the death of both masters, people were baptised with 
the baptism of John. Certain persons belonged to both 
schools at the same time, for example, the celebrated Apol- 
los, the rival of St. Paul (about the year 54), and a large 
number of the Christians in Ephesus. 424 Josephus, in the 
year 53, listened to the teaching of an ascetic called 
Banou, 425 who greatly resembled John the Baptist, and was 

422 Matt. 3: 14, 15; Luke 3: 16; John 1: 15-18, and 5: 32,33. 

423 Matt. 11: 2, 3; Luke 7: 18-20. 

424 Acts 18: 25; 19: 1-5. Compare Epiphan. Adv. hcer. 30: 16. 

425 Josephus, Life, 2. 

147 



LIFE OF JESUS 

perhaps of his school. This Banou 426 dwelt in the desert 
and clothed himself with the leaves of trees; he lived on 
nothing but wild plants and fruits, and baptised himself 
frequently, both day and night, in order to purify himself. 
James, he who was called the " brother of the Lord," prac- 
tised similar asceticism. 427 Later, about the end of the first 
century, Baptism was at enmity with Christianity, es- 
pecially in Asia Minor. The author of the writings at- 
tributed to John the evangelist appears to combat it in an 
indirect way. 428 One of the Sibylline poems 429 seems to 
emanate from this school. As to the sects of Hemero- 
baptists, Baptists, and Elchasai'tes (Sabiens and Mogtasila 
of the Arabian writers), 430 representatives of which still 
survive under the name of Mendaites, or " Christians of 
St. John," they have the same origin as the movement of 
John the Baptist rather than an authentic descent from 
John. The actual school of the latter, partly mingled with 
Christianity, became a small Christian heresy and died out 
in obscurity. John had as it were a presentiment of the 
future. Had he yielded to a mean rivalry, he would now be 
forgotten in the multitude of sectaries of his time. By his 
self-abnegation he has attained a glorious and a unique 
position in the religious pantheon of humanity. 

428 Possibly the Bounai reckoned by the Babylonian Talmud (San- 
hedrin, 43 a) among the disciples of Jesus. 

427 Hegesippus in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 2: 23. 

428 John 1: 8, 26, 33; 4: 2. 1 Ep. John 5: 6; Acts 10: 47. 

429 Lib. 4, especially verse 157 et seq. 

430 Sabian, in Aramaic, is the equivalent of "Baptist"; Mogtasila has 
the same meaning in Arabic. 



148 



CHAPTER XIII 

First Attempts on 'Jerusalem 

Nearly every year Jesus went to Jerusalem for the feast 
of the Passover. The details of these journeys are little 
known, for the Synoptics do not speak of them/ 31 and the 
notes of the fourth Gospel are, on this point, much con- 
fused. 432 It was, it appears, in the year 31, and certainly 
after the death of John, that the most important of the 
visits of Jesus to the capital took place. Several of the 

431 Still, they obscurely imply these visits. They, as well as the fourth 
Gospel, recognise the relations with Joseph of Arimathea. Luke (10: 
38^2) knows the family of Bethany, and even hints vaguely at a plan of 
journeyings not unlike that mentioned by John; his itinerary, in fact 
(9: 51-18: 31), is so strange as to seem as if constructed from incidents 
of several journeys. Certain fragments — 10: 25-42 (the good Samaritan 
and the household of Bethany); 11: 29-32, 37-41; 12: 1-11; 13: 10-17, 
31-35; 14: 1-6; 15: 1, 2 — seem to belong to Jerusalem or its neighbour- 
hood. The difficulty in this view seems to result from Luke's bringing 
everything into the Synoptic framework, from which he does not venture 
to depart. The larger part of the attack on Pharisees and Sadducees, 
which the Synoptics represent as made in Galilee, have scarce a meaning 
unless at Jerusalem. Finally, the length of time which they allow from 
his entrance into Jerusalem to his death, though it may possibly extend 
to several weeks (Matt. 26: 55; Mark 14: 49), is not enough to admit 
all the incidents recorded. The passages in Matt. 23 : 37 and Luke 13 : 
34 seem to confirm this view; though this, it may be urged, is a quotation, 
like Matt. 23: 34, referring in general terms to the various messages 
divinely sent to save the chosen people. 

432 Two pilgrimages are clearly indicated (John 2: 13, and 5:1), besides 
the final journey (7: 10), after which Jesus returns no more to Galilee. 
The first was while John was still baptising, and would, accordingly, cor- 
respond with the Passover of a.d. 29. But the circumstances recounted 
belong to a later date: compare John 2 : 14-17 (driving the money-changers 
from the Temple) with Matt. 21: 12. 13; Mark 11: 15-17; Luke 19: 45, 
46. Evidently, the date has been altered in the early chapters of the 
fourth Gospel; or, more likely, the incidents of different journeys have 
been confused. 

149 



LIFE OF JESUS 

disciples accompanied him. Although Jesus, from that 
time, attached little importance to the pilgrimage, he con- 
formed to it in order to avoid wounding Jewish opinion, 
with which, as yet, he had not broken. These journeys 
were moreover essential to his design; for he already felt 
that to play a leading part he must leave Galilee, and at- 
tack Judaism in its stronghold, Jerusalem. 

There the little Galilean community was far from feeling 
at home: Jerusalem was then very much what it is to-day, 
a city of pedantry, acrimony, disputation, hatreds, and 
pettiness of mind. Its fanaticism was extreme, and relig- 
ious seditions were very frequent. The Pharisees were in 
supreme power ; the study of the Law, carried to considera- 
tion of the most insignificant minutiae and reduced to ques- 
tions of casuistry, was the only study. Such exclusively 
theological and canonical culture in no respect contributed 
to refinement of intellect. It was somewhat analogous to 
the barren doctrine of the Mussulman fakir, to that empty 
science discussed round the mosques, which is a great ex- 
penditure of time and absolutely useless dialectic, having 
no value as an agent of good mental discipline. The theo- 
logical education of the modern clergy, however sterile it 
may be, gives us no idea of this, for the Renaissance intro- 
duced into all our teaching, even into that most opposed to 
it, a taste for belles lettres and for method, which has in- 
fused a certain " human " element into scholasticism. The 
science of the Jewish doctor, of the sofer or scribe, was 
purely barbarous, unmitigatedly absurd, and devoid of any 
moral element. 433 To crown the evil, it filled with ridicu- 
lous pride those who had worn themselves out in its ac- 
quisition. The Jewish scribe, proud of the pretentious 
knowledge which had cost him so much labour, had for 

433 It may be judged from the Talmud, which is an echo from the 
Jewish schools of this time. 

150 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

Greek culture the same contempt which the learned Mussul- 
man has at the present day for European civilisation, and 
which the old Catholic theologian had for the knowledge 
of men of the world. The tendency of scholastic culture 
of this kind is to close the mind to all that is refined, and 
to banish appreciation of anything other than those diffi- 
cult triflings on which men have wasted their lives, regard- 
ing them as the natural occupation of persons professing 
any degree of seriousness. 434 

This odious society could not fail to weigh very heavily 
on the tender souls and upright consciences of the north- 
ern Israelites. The contempt of the Hierosolymites for the 
Galileans made the difference in temperament still more 
complete. In the beautiful Temple, the object of all their 
desires, they often met with nothing but affront. A verse 
of the pilgrim's psalm, " I had rather be a doorkeeper in 
the house of my God" (Psalm 84: 10), seemed as though 
expressly made for them. A disdainful priesthood laughed 
at their simple devotions, as formerly in Italy the clergy, fa- 
miliarised with the sanctuaries, witnessed coldly, almost 
with amusement, the fervour of the pilgrim come from afar. 
The Galileans spoke a somewhat corrupt dialect; their pro- 
nunciation was vicious ; they confounded the different as- 
pirations of letters, thus making mistakes which caused 
much merriment. 435 In religion they were considered 
ignorant and of dubious orthodoxy 436 — indeed, the ex- 
pression " foolish Galileans " had become proverbial. 437 It 
was believed — and not without reason — that they were not 

434 See Josephus, Antiq., 20, 11: 2. 

435 Matt. 26: 73; Mark 14: 70; Acts 2:7; Babylonian Talmud, EruUn, 
53 a, b; Bereschith rabba, 26 c. 

436 See the passage just cited from the tract Ervhin; Mishna, Nedarim, 
2: 4; Jerusalem Talmud, Schabbath 16 (end); Babylonian Talmud, 
Baba bathra, 25 b. 

437 Ervhin (1. c.) 53 b. 

151 



LIFE OF JESUS 

of pure Jewish blood; and it was a matter of course that 
Galilee could not produce a prophet. 438 Placed thus on 
the confines of Judaism, almost outside it, the poor Gali- 
leans had only one badly interpreted passage in Isaiah 
upon which to build their hopes. 439 " The land of Zebu- 
Ion, and the land of Naphtali, the way of the sea, Galilee 
of the nations ! The people which sat in darkness saw a 
great light : and to them which sat in the region and shadow 
of death, to them did the light spring up." 440 The repu- 
tation of the native city of Jesus was particularly bad. 
There was a popular proverb, " Can any good thing come 
out of Nazareth ? " 441 

The very barren aspect of nature in the neighbourhood 
of Jerusalem must have added to the discomfort of Jesus. 
The valleys are without water, the soil arid and stony. 
Looking into the valley of the Dead Sea, the landscape is 
somewhat striking, but elsewhere it is monotonous. The 
hill of Mizpeh, around which cluster the oldest historical 
associations of Israel, alone relieves the eye. In the time 
of Jesus the city presented very much the same aspect as 
it does now. It had scarcely any ancient monuments, for, 
until the time of the Asmoneans, the Jews had remained 
strangers to all the arts. John Hyrcanus had begun to 
embellish it, and Herod the Great had made it a superb city. 
The Herodian constructions, by their stately elevation, per- 
fection of execution, and beauty of materials, 442 may dis- 
pute superiority with the most finished works of antiquity. 
A large number of tombs, of original taste, were erected 

438 John 7: 52. It has been shown by modern criticism that two or 
three prophets were born in Galilee; but the facts that prove it were un- 
known at the time of which we speak. (See, for Elijah, Josephus, Antiq., 
8, 13: 2.) 

439 Isaiah 9: 1, 2; Matt. 4: 13-16. 

440 See p. 195, note 4. 

441 John 1: 46 (weak authority). 

442 Josephus, Antiq., 15: 8-11; Wars, 5,5:6. Mark 13: 1, 2. 

152 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

about the same period in the neighbourhood of Jeru- 
salem. 443 These monuments were Greek in style, but ap- 
propriate to Jewish customs and considerably modified in 
accordance with their principles. The ornamental sculp- 
tures of the human figure, in which the Herods had indulged 
to the great displeasure of the purists, were banished and 
replaced by floral decorations. The taste of the ancient 
inhabitants of Phoenicia and Palestine for monolithic monu- 
ments hewn in the solid rock seemed to be revived in these 
singular rock tombs, in which Greek styles are so strangely 
applied to a troglodyte architecture. Jesus, who regarded 
works of art as a pompous display of vanity, viewed these 
monuments with dislike. 444 His absolute spirituality and 
his fixed belief that the form of the old world was about 
to pass away, left him no taste save for things of the 
heart. 

The Temple, at the time of Jesus, was quite new, and 
its exterior was not completely finished. Herod had be- 
gun its restoration in the year 20 or 21 before the Christian 
era, in order to make it uniform with his other buildings. 
The main fabric of the Temple was completed in eighteen 
months, the porticoes in eight years ; 445 but the construction 
of the accessory portions was continued slowly, and was 
only finished a short time before the capture of Jeru- 
salem. 446 Jesus probably saw the work in progress, not 
without a touch of secret vexation. Such hopes of a long 
future were like an insult to his approaching advent. Hav- 
ing clearer sight than the unbelievers and the fanatics, he 

443 Tombs of the Judges and Kings, — Absalom, Zechariah, Jehosha- 
phat, St. James (so-called). Compare the description of the tomb of the 
Maccabees at Modin: 1 Mace. 13: 27 (and Hist, of Israel, 11: 12). 

444 Matt. 23: 29; 24: 1, 2; Mark 13: 1, 2; Luke 21: 5, 6. Compare 
Enoch 97: 13, 14; Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 23 b. 

445 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 11: 5, 6. 
iiQ Ibid., 20, 9:7; John 2: 20. 

153 



LIFE OF JESUS 

foresaw that these superb buildings were destined to en- 
dure for but a short time. 447 

The Temple formed a marvellously imposing whole, of 
which the present haram,** 8 notwithstanding its beauty, 
scarcely affords any conception. The courts and surround- 
ing porticoes served as the daily resort of a great number 
of people — so much so indeed that this great open space 
was at once temple, forum, tribunal, and university. All 
the religious discussions of the Jewish schools, all the 
canonical instruction, even the legal business and civil 
actions — in a word, all the national activity, was concen- 
trated there. 449 It was an arena resounding with perpetual 
disputations, a battle-field of arguments in which sophisms 
and subtle questions were to be heard on every side. Thus 
the Temple had many affinities with a Mohammedan mosque. 
The Romans, who at this period treated all foreign 
religions with respect, when kept within proper bounds, 450 
refrained from entering the sanctuary; Greek and Latin 
inscriptions marked the point up to which those who were 
not Jews were permitted to go. 451 But the tower of An- 
tonia, the headquarters of the Roman garrison, commanded 
the whole enclosure, and allowed all that passed therein 
to be seen. 452 The surveillance of the Temple was in the 

447 Matt. 24: 2; 26: 61; 27: 40. Mark 13: 2; 14: 58; 15: 29. Luke 
21: 6; John 2: 19, 20. 

448 See Vogue's Temple de Jerusalem (Paris, 1864). The Temple, 
with its courts, no doubt occupied the site of the mosque of Omar and 
the haram, or sacred enclosure around the mosque. The embankment 
of the haram is, in parts, well known as the place where the Jews gather 
to weep, at the very substructure of Herod's temple. [Hist, of Israel, 
5: 246-249.] 

449 Luke 2: 46-49; Mishna, Sanhedrin, 10: 2; Babylonian Talmud, 
Sanhedrin, 41 a; Rosch hasschana, 31 a. 

450 Suetonius, Aug. 93. 

451 Philo Leg. ad Caium, 31. Josephus, Wars, 5, 5: 2; 6, 2: 4. Acts 
21:28. 

452 Traces of the tower of Antonia are still to be seen on the north side 
of the haram. 

154 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

hands of the Jews. The commandment, in whose charge 
it was, superintended the opening and shutting of the gates, 
and prevented any one from crossing the enclosure with a 
stick in his hand, or with dusty shoes, or when carrying 
burdens, or to shorten his path. 453 The Temple officials 
were especially scrupulous in seeing that no one entered 
the inner gates in a state of legal impurity. The women 
had, in the middle of the outer court, places reserved for 
them, surrounded by wooden hoardings. 

It was in the Temple that Jesus spent his days during 
his sojourn at Jerusalem. At the time of the feasts an 
extraordinary concourse of people flocked into the town. 
In parties of ten to twenty persons the pilgrims were to be 
found everywhere, and lived, huddled together in the con- 
fusion in which Orientals delight. 454 Jesus was lost in the 
crowd, and his poor Galileans, grouped around him, made 
little impression. He probably felt that here he was in a 
hostile world which would receive him only with disdain. 
All that he saw aroused his aversion. The Temple, like 
largely frequented places of worship in general, offered a 
somewhat unedifying spectacle. The devotional services 
entailed a number of rather objectionable features, es- 
pecially mercantile operations, for carrying on which actual 
shops were established within the sacred enclosure. Ani- 
mals for the sacrifices were sold in them; there were tables 
for the exchange of money; at times the place had the 
aspect of a fair. 455 The inferior officers of the Temple no 
doubt fulfilled their functions with the irreligious vulgarity 
characteristic of sacristans at all times. This profane and 
careless manner of handling sacred things wounded the 

453 Mishna, Berakoth, 9: 5; Babylonian Talmud, Jebamoth, 6 b; 
Mark 11: 16. 

454 Josephus, Wars, % 14 : 3 ; 6, 9 : 3. Psalm 133. 

455 Babylonian Talmud, Rosch hasschana, 31 a; Sanhedrin, 41 a; 
Schabbath, 15 a. 

155 



LIFE OF JESUS 

religious feeling of Jesus, which, at times, was carried to 
an extreme of scrupulosity. 456 He said that they had made 
the house of prayer into a den of thieves. It is even re- 
lated that one day, in an outbreak of wrath, he scourged 
the vendors with a " scourge of cords," and overturned their 
tables. 457 On the whole, he had little love for the Temple. 
The ideal of worship of his Father which he had conceived 
had nothing in common with scenes of butchery. All these 
old Jewish institutions displeased him, and the necessity of 
conforming to them gave him pain. Nor, except among the 
Judaising Christians, did the Temple and its site inspire 
devout feelings in Christian hearts. The true disciples of 
the new religion held the ancient sanctuary in aversion. 
Constantine and the first Christian emperors left the pagan 
buildings of Adrian standing there, 458 and only enemies of 
Christianity, such as Julian, remembered the Temple. 459 
When Omar entered Jerusalem he found the site designedly 
polluted in hatred of the Jews. 460 It was Islamism, which 
was, in a manner, a revival of Judaism in its excessively 
Semitic form, which restored its glory. The place has al- 
ways been anti-Christian. 

The pride of the Jews was the element which completed 
the discontent of Jesus, and made his sojourn in Jerusalem 
painful. While the great ideas of Israel had been ripen- 
ing, the priesthood had in the same measure been losing 
its power. The institution of synagogues had given to the 
interpreter of the Law, to the doctor, a great superiority 
over the priest. There were no priests except at Jerusalem, 
and even there, reduced to entirely ritualistic functions, al- 

466 Mark 11: 16. 

457 Matt. 21: 12, 13; Mark 11: 15, 16; Luke 19: 45, 46; John 2: 14-17. 

458 Jerome on Isaiah 2: 8 and Matt. 24: 15; Itin. a Burdig. Hierus., 
p. 152 (ed. Schott). 

459 Ammianus Marcellinus, 23: 1. 

460 Eutychius, Ann., 2: 286 et seq. (Oxford, 1659). 

156 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

most, like our parish priests, excluded from preaching, they 
were surpassed by the orator of the synagogue, the casuist, 
and by the sofer or scribe, although the latter was a lay- 
man. The celebrated men of the Talmud were not priests ; 
they were learned men according to the ideas of the time. 
It is true that the higher priesthood of Jerusalem held very 
lofty rank in the nation; but it by no means headed the 
religious movement. The sovereign pontiff, whose dignity 
had already been degraded by Herod, 461 became more and 
more a Roman functionary, 462 who was frequently changed 
in order to divide the profits of the office. Opposed to the 
Pharisees, who were very enthusiastic lay zealots, nearly 
all the priests were Sadducees, that is to say, members of 
the sceptical aristocracy which had gathered round the 
Temple, living by the altar whilst they saw its vanity. 463 
The priestly caste had separated itself so far from national 
feeling and from the great religious movement which drew 
the people forward, that the name of " Sadducee " 
(Sadoki), which at first simply designated a member of the 
sacerdotal family of Sadok, had become synonymous with 
" materialist " and " Epicurean." 

Since the reign of Herod the Great a still worse element 
had begun to corrupt the high-priesthood. Herod, having 
fallen in love with Mariamne, daughter of a certain Simon, 
son of Boethus of Alexandria, and being anxious to marry 
her (about the year 28 B.C.), saw no other means of en- 
nobling his father-in-law and raising him to his own rank 
than that of making him high-priest. This intriguing 
family remained masters, almost without interruption, of 
the sovereign pontificate for thirty-five years. 464 In close 

481 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 3: 1, 3. 462 Ibid., 18: 2. 

463 Acts 4: 1-21; 5: 17; 19: 14. Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1. Pirke 
Aboth, 1, 10. Comp. Tosiphta, Menachoth, 2. 

464 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 9: 3; 17, 6: 4, and 13: 1; 18, 1: 1, and 2: 1; 
19, 6: 2, and 8:1. 

157 



LIFE OF JESUS 

alliance with the reigning family, it did not lose office until 
after the deposition of Archelaus, and recovered it (in the 
year 42 of our era) when Herod Agrippa had temporarily 
re-established the work of Herod the Great. Thus came 
into being, under the name of Boethusim, 465 a new sacer- 
dotal nobility, very worldly and undevotional, which was 
hardly to be distinguished from the Sadokites. The Boe- 
thusim, in the Talmud and the rabbinical writings, are 
depicted as unbelievers and always reproached as being 
Sadducees. 466 From all this there resulted a miniature 
Cardinals' College round the Temple, living on politics, 
very slightly moved to excesses of zeal and even suspicious 
of them, turning a deaf ear to the reports of holy men or 
reformers ; for it derived profit from the continuance of the 
established routine. These Epicurean priests had not the 
violence of the Pharisees; they only wished for quietude; 
it was their moral indifference, their cold irreligious feel- 
ing that disgusted Jesus. Thus, although they differed 
widely from each other, priests and Pharisees were con- 
founded in his antipathy. But, as a stranger lacking in- 
fluence, he was long compelled to lock his discontent within 
himself and to express his feelings only to the intimate 
disciples who accompanied him. 

465 This name is found only in Jewish documents. In my opinion the 
"Herodians" of the New Testament are the Boethusim. The account 
of the Herodians given by Epiphanius (20) is of little weight. 

468 See the treatise Aboth Nathan, 5; Soferim, 3, hal. 5», Mishna, Men- 
achoth, 10: 3; Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 118 a. The name Boe- 
thusim is often used interchangeably in the Talmud with Sadducees or 
the word minim (heretics): compare Tosiphta, Joma, 1, with the same 
treatise in Jerusalem Talmud, 1 : 5, and Babylonian Talmud, 19 b; Tos. 
Sukka, 3, with the same in Babylonian Talmud, 43 b, and, further on, 
with 48 b; Tos. Rosch. hasschana, 1, with the same in Mishna, 2: 1, 
Jerusalem Talmud, 2: 1, and Babylonian Talmud, 122 b; Tos. Mena- 
choth, 10, with Mish. 10: 3, and Babylonian Talmud, 65 a; Mishna, 
Chagiga, 2: 4, andMegillath Taanith, 1; Tos. ladaim, 2, with Jerusalem 
Talmud, Baba bathra, 8: 1, and Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 115 b, Meg. 
Taan. 5. Compare also Mark 8 with Matt. 16: 6. 

158 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

Before his last stay, which was by far the longest of all 
that he made at Jerusalem, and terminated in his death, 
Jesus endeavoured however to procure a hearing. He 
preached; people talked about him, and discussed certain 
of his deeds which were regarded as miraculous. But from 
all this there resulted neither a Church at Jerusalem nor 
even a group of Hierosolymite disciples. The winning 
teacher who gave forgiveness to all men, provided they 
loved him, could not find much that was congenial in this 
sanctuary of vain disputations and obsolete sacrifices. The 
only consequence was that he formed some valuable friend- 
ships, the fruits of which he reaped later. He does not 
appear at this time to have made the acquaintance of the 
family at Bethany, which, amidst the trials of the latter 
months of his life, brought him so much consolation. But 
perhaps he had some intercourse with Mary, mother of 
Mark, whose house, some years later, was a place of resort 
for the apostles, and with Mark himself. 467 Soon, too, he 
attracted the notice of a certain Nicodemus, a wealthy 
Pharisee, a member of the Sanhedrim, and a man of high 
position in Jerusalem. 468 Nicodemus, who appears to have 
been upright and sincere, felt himself drawn towards the 
young Galilean. Unwilling to compromise himself, he 
came to see Jesus by night, and had a long conversation 
with him. 469 There can be no doubt that he kept a favour- 
able impression of him, for he afterwards defended Jesus 

467 Mark 14: 51, 52, where the "young man" appears to be Mark; see 
also Acts 12: 12. 

468 He seems to be referred to in the Babylonian Talmud, Taanith, 
20 a; Gittin, 56 a; Ketuboth, 66 b; treatise Aboth Nathan, 7; Midrasch 
rabba, Eka, 64 a. The passage in Taanith identifies him with Bounai, 
who, according to Sanhedrin (see above, p. 148 n. 426), was a disciple 
of Jesus. But if Bounai is the Banou of Josephus, this has no weight. 

469 John 3: 1-12. The language of the conversation is the composition 
of the evangelist; but it will hardly be maintained that Nicodemus him- 
self, with thej>art he olays in the life of Jesus, is an invention of bis. 

159 



LIFE OF JESUS 

against the prejudices of his colleagues, 470 and, after the 
death of Jesus, we shall find him tending the corpse of the 
Master with pious care. 471 Nicodemus did not become a 
Christian; he believed that, as a duty to his position, he 
should take no part in a revolutionary movement which as 
yet counted no men of note amongst its adherents. But 
he felt great friendship for Jesus, and rendered him ser- 
vices, though he was unable to rescue him from a death 
which, even at this epoch, was all but inevitable. 

As to the celebrated doctors of the time, Jesus does not 
appear to have had any relations with them. Hillel and 
Shammai were dead; the greatest contemporary authority 
was Gamaliel, grandson of Hillel. He was broad-minded 
and a man of the world, open to secular culture, and habit- 
uated to tolerance by his intercourse with good society. 472 
Unlike the very strict Pharisees, who walked veiled or with 
closed eyes, he did not scruple to look upon women, even 
those who were pagans. 473 This, as well as his knowledge 
of Greek, was excused, since he had access to the court. 474 
After the death of Jesus he expressed very moderate views 
concerning the new sect. 475 St. Paul belonged to his school, 
but it is improbable that Jesus ever entered it. 476 

One idea at least, brought by Jesus from Jerusalem and 
apparently thenceforth rooted in his mind, was that there 
was no understanding possible between him and the ancient 
Jewish religion. The abolition of the sacrifices which 
caused him so much disgust, the suppression of the impious 
and haughty priesthood, and, in a general sense, the abro- 

470 John7:50-52. 

471 John 19: 39. 

472 Mishna, Baba metsia, 5:8; Babylonian Talmud, Sota, 49 b. 

473 Jerusalem Talmud, Berakoth, 9: 2. 

474 Passage of Sota before cited, and Baba kama, 83 a. 

475 Acts 5: 34-39. 

476 Acts 22: 3. 

160 



ATTEMPTS ON JERUSALEM 

gation of the Law, seemed to him absolutely essential. 
From this time he no longer took his stand as a Jewish 
reformer, but as a destroyer of Judaism. Certain partisans 
of the Messianic ideas had already declared that the Mes- 
siah would bring with him a new Law, which should be 
common to the whole world. 477 The Essenes, who were not, 
strictly speaking, Jews, also appear to have been indifferent 
towards the Temple and Mosaic observances. But these 
were only isolated or unavowed instances of audacity. 
Jesus was the first who dared to say that from his time, or 
rather from that of John, 47S the Law no longer existed. 
If occasionally he expressed himself in more prudent 
terms, 479 it was to avoid shocking existing prejudices too 
violently. When driven to extremities, he flung off all dis- 
guise and declared that the Law had no longer any force. 
To illustrate the point he used striking comparisons. " No 
man putteth a piece of undressed cloth upon an old gar- 
ment . . . neither do men put new wine into old wine- 
skins." 480 In this we see his authoritative and creative 
teaching put into practice. All except Jews were excluded 
from the Temple and its enclosure by scornful prohibitions. 
Of such prohibitions Jesus did not approve. The narrow, 
harsh, uncharitable Law was made only for the children of 
Abraham. Jesus maintained that every man of good heart, 
every man who received and loved him, was a son of 
Abraham. 481 Pride of blood appeared to him as the great 

477 Sibylline Books, 3: 573 et seq., 715 et seq., 756-758. Compare 
Targum of Jonathan, Isaiah 12:3. 

478 Luke 16:16. The corresponding passage of Matthew, 1 1 : 12, 13, is 
not so clear, but its meaning is the same. 

479 Matt. 5: 17, 18 (compare Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 116 b). 
This passage does not conflict with those which imply the abolition of 
the Law; it merely signifies that all the figures of the Old Testament are 
fulfilled in Jesus (comp. Luke 16: 17). 

480 Matt. 9: 16, 17; Luke 5: 36-39. 

481 Luke 19: 9. 

161 



LIFE OF JESUS 

foe that men must fight against. In other words, Jesus is 
no longer a Jew. He is, in the highest degree, a revolu- 
tionary; he calls all men to a worship founded solely on 
the ground of their being children of God. He proclaims 
the rights of man, not the rights of the Jew; the religion 
of man, not the religion of the Jew; the deliverance of 
man, not the deliverance of the Jew. 482 How far removed 
is this from a Gaulonite Judas or a Matthias Margaloth 
preaching revolution in the name of the law! The re- 
ligion of humanity, based, not upon blood, but upon the 
heart, is founded. Moses is superseded, the Temple has 
no longer reason to be, and is irrevocably condemned. 

482 Matt. 24: 14; 28: 19. Mark 13: 10; 16: 15. Luke 24: 47. 



162 



CHAPTER XIV 

Intercourse with Pagans and Samaritans 

In accordance with these principles,, Jesus despised all 
religion that was not of the heart. The vain ceremonial 
of devotees/ 83 the outward display of strictness which 
trusted to punctiliousness for salvation, had in him a mortal 
enemy. He cared little for fasting. 484 To sacrifice he pre- 
ferred the pardon of an injury. 485 Love of God, charity, 
and mutual forgiveness — in these consisted his whole 
law. 486 Nothing could be less sacerdotal. The priest, by 
very reason of his office, ever urges men to the public sac- 
rifice of which he is the appointed minister; he discourages 
private prayer, which is a means of dispensing with his 
services. We should seek in vain through the Gospel for 
one religious rite recommended by Jesus. To him baptism 
was of but secondary importance; 487 and as to prayer, he 
lays down no rule, save that it should come from the heart. 
As always happens, many thought it possible to substitute 
the good-will of weakly souls for genuine love of righteous- 
ness, and imagined they could win the kingdom of heaven 
by saying to him, " Rabbi, Rabbi." He rebuked them and 
declared that his religion consisted in doing good. 488 He 
often quoted the passage in Isaiah: " This people honour- 
eth me with their lips, but their heart is far from me." 489 

483 Matt. 15:9. 

484 Matt. 9: 14; 11: 19. 

485 Matt. 5: 23-26; 9: 13; 12: 7. 

486 Matt. 22: 37-40; Mark 12: 29, 30; Luke 10: 25-37. 

487 Matt. 28: 19, and Mark 12: 16 do not represent his real words: 
compare Acts 10: 47, and 1 Cor. 1 : 47. 

488 Matt. 7: 21; Luke 6: 46. 

489 Matt. 15: 8; Mark 7: 6; cf. Isaiah 29: 13. 

163 



LIFE OF JESUS 

The observance of the Sabbath was the point upon which 
the whole edifice of Pharisaic scruples and subtleties was 
based. This ancient and excellent institution had become 
a pretext for miserable disputes among casuists, and a 
source of superstitious beliefs. 490 It was believed that 
nature observed it; all intermittent springs were accounted 
" Sabbatical." 491 And it was upon this point that Jesus 
liked best to defy his enemies. 492 He openly violated the 
Sabbath, and only desponded with subtle raillery to the 
reproaches heaped upon him. With still greater justifica- 
tion he held in contempt a multitude of modern observances 
added by tradition to the Law, and for precisely that rea- 
son the dearer to devotees. Ablutions and over-subtle dis- 
tinctions between pure and impure things found in him a 
pitiless opponent: " Not that which entereth into the 
mouth," said he, " defileth the man; but that which pro- 
ceedeth out of the mouth, this defileth the man" (Matt. 
15:11). The Pharisees, who were the propagators of 
these mummeries, were the constant objects of his attacks. 
He accused them of exceeding the Law, of inventing im- 
possible precepts, in order to create occasions of sin for 
men. "Blind leaders of the blind," said he; "take heed 
lest ye also fall into the ditch." " Ye offspring of vipers," 
he secretly added, " how can ye, being evil, speak good 
things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth 
speaketh." 493 

He was not sufficiently acquainted with the Gentiles to 

490 See, especially, the treatise Schabbath of the Mishna, and the Book 
of Jubilees (translated from the Ethiopic in Ewald's Jahrbiicher, years 
2, 3), chap. 1. 

491 Josephus, Wars, 7, 5: 1; Pliny, Hist. Nat, 31: 18; compare "The 
Land and the Book" (Thomson), 1: 406. 

492 Matt. 12: 1-14. Mark 2: 23-28. Luke 6: 1-5; 13: 14-17; 14: 
1-6. 

493 Matt. 12: 34; 15: 1-9, 12-14; 23. Mark 7: 1, 8, 15, 16. Luke 
6:45; 11:39-44. 

164 



PAGANS AND SAMARITANS 

think of founding any lasting results on their conversion. 
In Galilee there was a great number of pagans, but 
apparently no public and organised worship of false 
gods. 494 Jesus could see this worship displayed in all its 
splendour in the country of Tyre and Sidon, at Caesarea 
Philippi and in the Decapolis, 495 but he gave it little at- 
tention. In him we never find the tiresome pedantry of his 
Jewish contemporaries, those invectives against idolatry, so 
familiar to his co-religionists from the time of Alexander, 
of which, for instance, the Book of Wisdom is full. 496 
What impressed him in the pagans was not their idolatry 
but their servility. 497 The young Jewish democrat, in this 
matter the brother of Judas the Gaulonite, acknowledging 
no master save God, was deeply hurt at the honours with 
which they surrounded the persons of sovereigns, and the 
frequently mendacious titles given to the latter. With this 
exception, in the greater number of instances in which he 
has relations with pagans, he shows great indulgence to- 
wards them. At times he professes to conceive more hope 
for them than for the Jews. 498 The kingdom of God is to 
be transferred to them. " When therefore the lord of the 
vineyard shall come, what will he do unto those husband- 
men ? . . . He will miserably destroy those miserable men, 
and will let out the vineyard unto other husbandmen, which 
shall render him the fruits in their seasons." 499 Jesus 

494 The Pagans of Galilee were mostly, I think, on the boundaries, — 
Kadesh, for example, — while the heart of the country, except the city 
of Tiberias, was wholly Jewish. The line where ruins of temples end 
and those of synagogues begin is plainly marked at Lake Hulek (Sama- 
chonitis or Merom). Traces of Pagan sculpture, thought to be found 
at Tell-Hum, are doubtful. The sea-coast, the town of Acra in par- 
ticular, made no part of Galilee. 

495 See ante, pp. 184, 185. 

498 Chaps. 8, 14. 

497 Matt. 20: 25; Mark 10: 42; Luke 22: 25. 

498 Matt. 8: 5-10; 15: 22-28. Mark 7: 25-30. Luke 4: 25-27. 

499 Matt. 21: 41; Mark 12: 9; Luke 20: 16. 

165 



LIFE OF JESUS 

adhered the more to this idea inasmuch as the conversion 
of the Gentiles was, according to Jewish ideas, one of the 
surest signs of the advent of the Messiah. 500 In his king- 
dom of God he represents, seated at the feast by the side 
of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, men come from the four 
winds of heaven, whilst the lawful heirs of the kingdom 
are rejected. 501 Frequently, it is true, there appears to be 
an entirely contrary tendency in the commands given by 
him to his disciples; he seems to enjoin them to preach 
salvation to the orthodox Jews alone ; 502 he speaks of 
pagans in a manner conformable to Jewish prejudices. 503 
But it must be remembered that the disciples, whose nar- 
row minds were not adapted to such supreme indifference 
for the privileges of the sons of Abraham, may have 
moulded their Master's teaching in accordance with their 
own ideas. 504 And besides it is very possible that Jesus 
may have expressed diverse views on this matter, just as 
Mahomet speaks of the Jews in the Koran, sometimes in 
the most honourable manner, sometimes with extreme harsh- 
ness, as he had hopes of winning them over to him or not. 
Tradition, in fact, attributes to Jesus two entirely opposite 
rules of proselytism, which, it is possible, he may have 
put in practice alternately. " He that is not against us is 
for us." " He that is not with me is against me." 505 A 
passionate struggle almost necessarily involves contra- 
dictions of this nature. 

500 Isaiah 2: 2, 3, and 60; Amos 9: 11, 12; Jer. 3: 17; Mai. 1: 11; 
Tobit 13: 13, 16; Orac. Sibyll. 3: 715 et seq. Comp. Matt. 24: 14; 
Acts 15: 15-17. 

501 Matt. 8: 11, 12; 21: 33-43; 22: 1-14. 
602 Matt. 7: 6; 10: 5, 6; 15: 24; 21: 43. 

503 Matt. 5: 46-48; 6: 7, 32; 18: 17. Luke 6: 32-36; 12: 30. 

504 What leads us to think so is that the really authentic words of 
Jesus, the Logia of Matthew, are of universal moral application, and 
have no savour of the Jewish devotee. 

505 Matt. 12: 3; Mark 9: 39; Luke 9: 50; 11: 23. 

166 



PAGANS AND SAMARITANS 

It is certain that among his disciples he counted many 
men whom the Jews called " Hellenes." 506 In Palestine 
this word had very diverse meanings. Occasionally it des- 
ignated pagans; occasionally Jews, speaking Greek, and 
dwelling amongst pagans ; 507 occasionally people of pagan 
origin converted to Judaism. 508 It was probably in the last 
named category of Hellenes that Jesus found sympathy. 509 
Affiliation to Judaism had many degrees, but the proselytes 
always remained in a state of inferiority to the Jew by 
birth. They were called " proselytes of the gate," or " men 
fearing God," and were subject to the precepts of Noah, 
not to those of Moses. 510 This very inferiority was no 
doubt the cause that attracted Jesus to them, and won them 
his favour. 

The Samaritans received the same treatment at his hands. 
Shut in, like a small island, between the two great provinces 
of Judaism, Judaea and Galilee, Samaria formed in Pales- 
tine a kind of enclosure in which was preserved the ancient 
worship of Gerizim, closely resembling and rivalling that 
of Jerusalem. This poor sect, which had neither the genius 
nor the learned organisation of Judaism proper was treated 
by the Temple-worshippers with extreme severity. 511 They 
classed its adherents with pagans but hated them more. 512 
Jesus, by a reaction of feeling, was well disposed towards 

808 Josephus says this definitely (Antiq., 18, 3: 3), where there is 
no reason to suspect a change in the text. Compare John 7: 35; 12: 
20, 21. 

507 Jerusalem Talmud, Sota, 7: 1. 

508 See John 7: 35; 12: 20. Acts 14: 1; 17: 4; 18: 4; 21: 28. 

509 John 12: 20; Acts 8: 27. 

510 Mishna, Baba metsia, 9: 12. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 56 b. 
Acts 8: 27; 10: 2, 22, 35; 13: 16,26, 43,50; 16: 14; 17: 4, 17; 18: 7. Gal. 
2: 3. Josephus, Antiq., 14, 7: 2. Levy, Epigr. Beitrdge zur Gesch. 
der Juden, 311 et seq. 

511 Eccles. 1: 27, 28. John 8: 48. Josephus, Antiq., 9, 14: 3; 11, 

8: 6; 12, 5: 5. Jerusalem Talmud, Aboda Zara, 5: 4; Pesachin, 1: 1. 

* 12 Matt. 10: 5; Luke 17: 18; comp. Babylonian Talmud, Cholin, 6 a. 

167 



LIFE OF JESUS 

them. Frequently he shows a preference for the Samaritans 
over the orthodox Jews. If at other times he seems to 
forbid his disciples to preach to them, keeping his Gospel 
for the pure Israelites, 513 this was probably another pre- 
cept, occasioned by special circumstances, to which the 
apostles have given too absolute a meaning. Sometimes in 
fact the Samaritans received him badly, supposing him to 
be full of the prejudices of his co-religionists 514 — just as 
in our own time the European freethinker is regarded as an 
enemy by the Mussulman, who invariably believes him to be 
a fanatical Christian. Jesus knew how to rise above such 
misconceptions. 515 He apparently had several disciples at 
Shechem, and he spent at least two days there. 516 On one 
occasion he met with gratitude and true piety only in the 
house of a Samaritan. 517 One of his most beautiful para- 
bles is that of the man who was wounded on the way to 
Jericho. A priest passes by and sees him, but goes on his 
way; a Levite also passes, but does not stop; a Samaritan 
takes pity on him, goes up to him, and pours oil into his 
wounds and bandages them. 518 From this Jesus argues 
that true brotherhood is established among them by charity 
and not by religious creeds. The " neighbour," who in 
Judaism is first of all the co-religionist, 519 is for him the 
man who has pity on his kind without distinction of sect. 

513 Matt. 10: 5, 6. 
614 Luke 9: 53. 

515 Luke 9: 56. 

516 John 4: 39-43. What leaves some doubt upon this passage is that 
Luke and the writer of the fourth Gospel, who are both anti-Judaists 
and disposed to show that Jesus was favourable to Gentiles, are the only 
ones who speak of relations between Jesus and the Samaritans, and 
in this appear to contradict Matthew 10: 5. 

517 Luke 17: 16-19. 

518 Luke 10: 30-35. 

519 The passage in Levit. 19: 18, 33, 34, shows a broader feeling; but 
the circle of Jewish brotherhood narrowed more and more: see the dic- 
tionary, Aruch, under the word mi p. 

168 



PAGANS AND SAMARITANS 

Human brotherhood in its widest sense overflows through 
all his teaching. 

These thoughts, which beset Jesus on his departure from 
Jerusalem, found vivid expression in an anecdote which 
has been preserved regarding his return. 520 The road from 
Jerusalem to Galilee passes at a distance of half-an-hour's 
journey from Shechem, 521 now Nablous, in front of the 
entrance to the valley commanded by Mount Ebal and 
Mount Gerizim. This route was usually avoided by 
Jewish pilgrims, who, in their journeys, preferred to make 
a long detour through Perea, rather than expose them- 
selves to the insults of the Samaritans or ask anything of 
them. Eating or drinking with them was forbidden. 522 
One of the axioms of certain casuists was, " a piece of 
Samaritan bread is the flesh of swine." 523 When they fol- 
lowed this route, provisions were always stored beforehand; 
yet conflict and ill-treatment were rarely avoided. 524 Jesus 
shared neither scruples nor fears of this nature. Having 
in his journey reached the point at which the valley of 
Shechem opens out on the left, he felt weary and stopped 
near a well. Then as now the Samaritans were accustomed 
to give names drawn from patriarchal tradition to all the 
places in their valley. They regarded this well as having 
been given by Jacob to Joseph; it was probably the same 
well that is called Bir-Iahoub. The disciples entered the 
valley and went to the city to buy food. Jesus sat down 
at the side of the well, facing Gerizim. 

It was about noon. A woman belonging to Shechem 
came to draw water. Jesus asked her to let him drink, 

520 John4:4^2. 

621 Now Naplouse. That "Sychar" is Shechem follows from com- 
paring John 4: 5 with Gen. 33: 19; 48: 22; and Josh. 24: 32. 

522 Luke 9: 53; John 4: 9. 

523 Mishna, Schebiit, 8: 10, repeated elsewhere in the Talmud. 
624 Josephus, Ardiq., 20, 5: 1; Wars, 2, 12: 3; Life, 52. 

169 



LIFE OF JESUS 

which caused her great astonishment, since the Jews, as a 
rule, forbade all intercourse with Samaritans. Impressed 
by the conversation of Jesus, the woman recognised in him 
a prophet, and, expecting to hear reproaches about her 
worship, she anticipated them: " Sir," said she, " I perceive 
that thou art a prophet. Our fathers worshipped in this 
mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where 
men ought to worship." Jesus saith unto her, "Woman 
believe me, the hour cometh when neither in this mountain 
nor in Jerusalem shall ye worship the Father. . . . But the 
hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall 
worship the Father in spirit and truth." 525 

On the day when he said these words he was truly Son 
of God. For the first time he gave utterance to the saying 
upon which will rest the edifice of eternal religion. He 
founded that pure worship, not of one faith and not of one 
land, which all men lofty of soul will practise till the end 
of time. Not only was his religion on that day the best 
religion of humanity, it was the absolute religion; and if it 
be that other planets have dwellers dowered with reason 
and morality, their religion cannot be different from that 
which Jesus proclaimed by the well of Jacob. Man has 
not been able to maintain the position, for the ideal is but 
transitorily realised. This saying of Jesus has been a great 
light amidst the darkness of night; eighteen hundred years 

525 John 4: 21-23. We need not insist upon the historical accuracy 
of this conversation, which can have been reported only by Jesus or by 
the woman herself. But the narrative of this chapter certainly repre- 
sents one of the inmost thoughts of Jesus, and most of the circumstances 
have a strong stamp of truth. The 22d verse ("Ye worship ye know 
not what: we know what we worship, for salvation is of the Jews"), 
which expresses a thought opposed to verses 21, 23, seems an awkward 
interpolation of the writer, alarmed at the boldness of the saying he reports. 
This circumstance, with the feebleness of the remainder of the passage, 
is no small additional reason for thinking that these verses (21, 23) 
are really the words of Jesus. 

170 



PAGANS AND SAMARITANS 

have been necessary for the eyes of mankind — what do I 
say ! of an infinitely small part of mankind — to have grown 
accustomed to it. But the light will increase to the fulness 
of day, and, after having traversed all the cycles of error, 
mankind will return to this saying, as to the immortal ex- 
pression of its faith and its hope. 



171 



CHAPTER XV 

Legends Concerning the Messiah 

Jesus returned to Galilee full of revolutionary ardour, 
and with his Jewish faith completely lost. His ideas are 
now expressed with perfect clarity. The innocent apho- 
risms of his prophetic period, borrowed in part from 
Jewish rabbis preceding him, and the beautiful moral pre- 
cepts of his second period, culminate in a decided policy. 
The Law is to be abolished, and it is he that will abolish 
it. 52G The Messiah is come, and it is he that is the Mes- 
siah. 527 The kingdom of God is about to be revealed, and 
it is he that will reveal it. He knew well that he would 
be the victim of his own audacity; but the kingdom of God 
could not be conquered without violence; it was by crises 
and rending of hearts that it had to be established. 528 The 
Son of man after his death would come again in glory, at- 
tended by legions of angels, and those who had rejected 
him would be confounded. 

The daring of a conception such as this must not sur- 
prise us. For a long time Jesus had been accustomed to 
regard his relations with God as those of a son with his 

628 The hesitation of his immediate disciples, of whom a considerable 
part continued faithful to Judaism, offers serious difficulties to this ex- 
planation. But his trial leaves no room to doubt. As we shall see, he 
Avas treated by the Sanhedrin as a " deceiver" (misleader). The Talmud 
gives this procedure as an example of what should be followed against 
"misleaders" who seek to overthrow the law of Moses (Jerusalem Tal- 
mud, Sanhedrin, 14: 16; Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 43 a, 67a). Compare 
Acts 6: 13, 14. 

527 The progress of his declarations on this point may be seen by com- 
ing Matt. 16: 13-20; Mark 1: 24, 25, 34, 8: 27-30, and 14: 61, 62; Luke 
9: 18-22. 

528 Matt. 11: 12. 

172 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

father. What in others would be insupportable pride must 
not in him be looked upon as presumption. 

The title of " Son of David " was the first which he 
accepted/ 29 probably without participating in the innocent 
frauds by which it was sought to secure it to him. The 
family of David was apparently long since extinct; 530 
neither the Asmoneans from their priestly origin, nor 
Herod; nor the Romans dreamed for a moment that any 
representative whatever of the ancient dynasty was living 
in their midst. But since the close of the Asmonean dynasty 
the dream of an unknown descendant of the ancient kings, 
who should avenge the nation on its enemies, had been 
exercising all men's minds. The universal belief was that 
the Messiah would be the son of David, 531 and, like him, 
would be born at Bethlehem. 532 The first idea of Jesus 
was not precisely this. His heavenly reign had nothing 
in common with the memories of David, which were upper- 
most in the minds of the majority of the Jews. He be- 
lieved himself the son of God and not the son of David. 
His kingdom and the deliverance which he meditated were 
of quite another order. But public opinion on this point 
made him, as it were, do violence to himself. The imme- 
diate consequence of the proposition, " Jesus is the Mes- 

529 Rom. 1:3. Rev. 5: 5; 22: 16. 

530 It is true that certain doctors, such as Hillel and Gamaliel, are given 
out as of the race of David ; but these assertions are very doubtful (see 
Jerusalem Talmud, Taanith, 4:2). If the house of David still formed a 
distinct and well-known group, how is it that it never appears side by side 
with the sons of Zadok, the Boethusim, the Asmoneans, the family of 
Herod, in the great struggles of the time? Hegesippus and Eusebius 
(Hist eccl. 3: 19, 20) give only an echo of the Christian tradition. 

531 Matt. 22: 42; Mark 12: 35; Luke 1: 32; Acts 2: 29-36; 4 Esdras 
12: 32 (in the Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian, and Armenian versions). _ "Ben- 
David 5 * in the Talmud often denotes the Messiah (e. g. Babylonian Tal- 
mud, Sanhedrin, 97 a). 

532 Matt. 2: 5, 6; John 7: 41, 42. This was quite arbitrarily founded 
upon the passage (perhaps altered) in Micah 5:2; compare the Targum 
of Jonathan. The primitive Hebrew text was probably Beth-Ephrata. 

173 



LIFE OF JESUS 

siah," was the farther proposition, " Jesus is the Son of 
David." He permitted a title to be given him, lacking 
which he could hope for no success. He ended, it would 
seem, by taking pleasure in it, for he showed most willing- 
ness in performing the miracles which were asked of him 
by those who used this title in addressing him. 533 In this, 
as in many other circumstances of his life, Jesus yielded 
to the current ideas of the age, even although they were 
not precisely his own. With his doctrine of the " kingdom 
of God " he associated all that could warm the heart and 
imagination. It was thus that we have seen him adopt the 
baptism of John, although it could have been but of slight 
importance to him. 

One great difficulty presented itself — his birth at Naza- 
reth, which was of public notoriety. We do not know 
whether Jesus combated this objection. Perhaps it did 
not come to light in Galilee, where the idea that the Son 
of David should be a Bethlehemite was less widely dif- 
fused. To the Galilean enthusiast moreover the title of 
Son of David was sufficiently justified, if he to whom it 
was given revived the glory of his race and brought back 
the great days of Israel. Did Jesus authorise by his silence 
the fictitious genealogies that arose in the imaginations of 
his partisans to prove his royal descent? 534 Did he know 
anything of the legends invented to demonstrate his birth 
at Bethlehem, 535 and particularly of the artifice by which 
his Bethlehemite origin was connected with the census 
which had taken place by order of Quirinius, the imperial 

533 Matt. 9: 27; 13: 23; 15: 22; 20: 30, 31. Mark 10: 47, 52. Luke 
18: 33. 

534 Matt. 1 : 1-16; Luke 3: 23-38. 

535 It is curious, too, that there was a Bethlehem some three or four 
leagues from Nazareth: Joshua 19: 15, and Van de Velde's map. ["It 
was discovered by Dr. Robinson at Beit-lahm, six miles west of Naza- 
reth."] 

174 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

legate ? 536 We cannot tell. The inexactitude and the con- 
tradictions of the genealogies 53T lead one to think that 
they were the result of popular imagination working on 
various points, and that none were sanctioned by Jesus. 538 
He never designated himself Son of David. His disciples, 
much less enlightened than he, frequently magnified what 
he said of himself; but, as a rule, he had no knowledge of 
these exaggerations. It should be added that, during the 
first three centuries, considerable portions of Christen- 
dom 539 persistently denied the royal descent of Jesus and 
the authenticity of the genealogies. 

The legends about him were thus the fruits of a great 
and entirely spontaneous conspiracy, and grew up around 
him while he was still alive. No great historical event has 
occurred without having given rise to a cycle of myths; 
and Jesus could not have prevented these popular creations, 
even had he wished to do so. Perhaps an acute observer 
would have recognised at this point the appearance of the 
germ of the narratives which were to attribute to him a 
supernatural birth, 540 founded, it may be, on the idea, which 

536 Matt. 2: 1-S; Luke 2: 1-4. 

537 The two genealogies completely contradict each other, and have 
little in common with those of the Old Testament. The story of Luke 
about the census of Quirinius is in defiance of dates (see note on p. 18). 
The legend would naturally fortify itself by this circumstance. The Jews 
were strongly impressed by the taking of a census, which confused their 
narrow notions; and they long kept the memory of it (cf. Acts 5: 37). 

538 Julius Africanus (in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 1:7) supposes that the kin- 
dred of Jesus, after taking refuge in Batanaea, made the attempt to recon- 
struct the genealogies. 

539 The Ebionites, Hebrews, and Nazarenes, with Tatian and Marcion: 
Epiphan. 29: 9; 80: 3, 14; 46: 1; Theodoret, Hceret. fab. 1: 20; Isadore 
of Pelusium, Epist. 1: 371, and Pansophium. 

540 Matt. 1: 18-23; Luke 1: 26-35. This was certainly not a uni- 
versally received opinion in the first century, since Jesus is called, without 
reserve, the "son of Joseph," and both the genealogies constructed to 
connect him with the line of David are those of Joseph (cf. Gal. 4:4; 
Rom. 1: 3). 

175 



LIFE OF JESUS 

was very prevalent in antiquity, that the incomparable man 
could not be born of ordinary sexual relations; or adapted 
to correspond to an imperfectly understood chapter of 
Isaiah, 541 which, it was believed, foretold that the Messiah 
should be born of a virgin; or lastly, perhaps, occasioned 
by the belief that the " breath of God," already given a 
divine hypostasis, was a principle of fecundity. 542 Even 
at this time there was possibly current more than one anec- 
dote about his childhood, conceived with the intention of 
showing in his life the accomplishment of the Messianic 
ideal, 543 or rather of the prophecies which the allegorical 
exegesis of the period referred to the Messiah. A gen- 
erally accepted idea was that the Messiah would be an- 
nounced by a star, 544 that messengers from distant peoples 
would come at his birth to render him homage and bring 
him gifts. 545 It was supposed that this prophecy was ac- 
complished by so-called Chaldaean astrologers said to have 
come about that time to Jerusalem. 540 On other occasions 
they attributed to him relations, from his very cradle, with 
celebrated men, such as John the Baptist, Herod the Great, 
and two aged persons, Simeon and Anna, who had left 
memories of great sanctity. 547 A somewhat loose chro- 
nology characterised these combinations, which, for the 
most part, were founded on real facts in a travestied 
form. 548 But a singular spirit of gentleness and goodness, 

541 Isaiah 7: 14; cf. Matt. 1: 22, 23. 

542 Gen. 1: 2. For the similar idea among the Egyptians, see Herodo- 
tus 3: 28; Pomponius Mela, 1: 9; Plutarch, Qua>st. Symp., 8, 1:3; 
De Iside et Osir, 43; Mariette, Mem. sur la mere a" Apis (Paris, 1856). 

543 Matt. 1: 15, 23; Is. 7: 14-16. 

544 Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Levi, 18. The name (or 
title) Bar-Cochab assumes this belief. Jerusalem Talmud, Taanith, 
4: 8; see Num. 24:17. 

545 Isaiah 60: 3; Ps. 72:10. 

546 Matt. 2:1, 2. 

547 Luke 2: 25, 26 (slight authority). 

648 Thus the legend of the slaughter of babes at Bethlehem probably 

176 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

a profoundly popular feeling informed all these fables, and 
made them supplemental to his teaching. 549 It was es- 
pecially after the death of Jesus that such narratives be- 
came elaborately developed; it may be supposed however 
that they were already in circulation during his lifetime, 
and met with nothing but pious credulity and simple ad- 
miration. 

That Jesus ever dreamed of making himself pass for an 
incarnation of God is a matter about which no doubt can 
exist. Such an idea was entirely foreign to the Jewish 
mind; there is no trace of it in the synoptic Gospels, 550 
and we only find it indicated in certain portions of the 
fourth Gospel, which can least be accepted as echoing the 
thoughts of Jesus. At times Jesus even seems to take pre- 
cautions to controvert such a doctrine. 551 The accusation 
that he made himself God, or the equal of God, is pre- 
sented, even in the fourth Gospel, as a Jewish calumny. 552 
In this last Gospel he declares himself to be less than his 
Father. 553 Elsewhere he avows that the Father has not 
revealed all to him. 554 He believes himself to be more than 
an ordinary man, but separated by an infinite distance from 
God. He is the Son of God, but all men are, or may be- 
come so in divers degrees. 555 Every man, day by day, 
should call God his Father; all who are raised again will 

reflects some cruelty practised by Herod in that locality (see Josephus, 
Antiq., 14, 9: 4; Wars, 1: 33: 6). 

549 Matt. 1:2; Luke 1:2; Justin, Try ph., 78: 106; Protevang. of James 
(apocr.), 18-20. 

550 Some passages (as Acts 2: 22) absolutely exclude it. 

651 Matt. 4: 10; 7: 21; 22; 19: 17. Mark 1: 44; 3: 12; 10: 17, 18; 
Luke 18: 19. 

652 John 5; 18-20; 10: 33-36. 

553 John 14: 28. 554 Mark 13: 35. 

555 Matt. 5:9, 45. Luke 3: 38; 6: 35; 20: 36. John 1: 12, 13; 10: 34, 
35. Acts 17: 28, 29. Rom. 8: 14-17, 19, 21, 23; 9: 26. 2 Cor. 6: 18. 
Gal. 3: 26; 4: 1-7. Phil. 2: 15. Ep. of Barnabas, 14 (p. 10, Hilgenfeld: 
Cod. Sina'iU Also, Deut. 14 : 1 ; Wisdom 2: 13, 18. 

177 



LIFE OF JESUS 

be Sons of God. 556 Divine sonship was, in the Old Testa- 
ment, attributed to human beings without equality with 
God being also attributed to them. 557 The word " son " has 
the widest meanings in the Semitic language and in that 
of the New Testament. 558 And besides, the idea of man 
held by Jesus does not conform to the moderate estimate 
which has been introduced by a cold deism. In his poetic 
conception of nature one breath alone suspires through the 
universe; the breath of man is that of God; God dwells in 
man, and lives by man, even as man dwells in God, and 
lives by God. 559 The transcendental idealism of Jesus never 
permitted him a very clear impression of his own person- 
ality. He is his Father, his Father is he. He lives in his 
disciples; everywhere he is with them; 56 ° his disciples are 
one even as he and his Father are one. 561 The idea to him 
is everything; the body, which makes distinctions of per- 
sons, is naught. 

The designation " Son of God," or simply " Son," 562 
thus became for Jesus a term analogous to " Son of man," 
and, like that, synonymous with the " Messiah," the only 
difference being that he called himself " Son of man," and 
does not appear to have made the same use of the title, 

556 Luke 20' 36 

557 Gen. 6: 2. Job 1: 6; 2: 1; 28: 7. Ps. 2: 7; 82: 6. 2 Sam. 7: 14. 

558 Children (sons) of the Devil (Matt. 13: 38; Acts 13: 10); children 
of this world (Mark 3: 17; Luke 16: 8, and 20: 34); children of light 
(Luke 16: 8; John 12: 36); children of the resurrection (Luke 20: 36); 
children of the kingdom (Matt. 8: 12; 13: 38); children of the bride- 
groom (Matt. 9: 15; Mark 2: 19; Luke 5: 34); children of Gehenna 
(Matt. 23: 15); sons of peace (Luke 10: 6), etc. The pagan Zeus, we 
rememberf is Trar^p duSpwv re deu>v re. 

559 Compare Acts 17:28. 

560 Matt. 18: 20; 28: 20. 

561 John 10: 30; 13: 21; and, in general, the last discourses reported in 
this Gospel, especially chap. 17, which well expresses one phase of the 
mind of Jesus, — though these cannot be regarded as genuine historical 
documents. 

562 The passages exemplifying this are too numerous for citation. 

178 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

" Son of God." 563 " Son of man " expressed his character 
as judge, " Son of God " his participation in the heavenly 
government and his power. This power has no limits. 
His Father has given him all power. He has a right to 
alter even the Sabbath. 564 None can know the Father 
save through him; 565 and to him the Father has granted 
the right to judge. 566 Nature obeys him; but she also obeys 
all who believe and pray, for faith can do all things. 567 

It must be remembered that no conception of natural 
laws entered either his mind or those of his hearers to mark 
the bounds of the impossible. Those who witnessed his 
miracles glorified God " which had given such power unto 
men." 568 He granted remission of sins; 569 he was greater 
than David and Abraham, and Solomon, and the proph- 
ets." 5T0 We do not know in what form, or to what extent, 
these affirmations of himself were made. Jesus is .not to 
be judged by the law of our petty conventionalities. His 
disciples' admiration overwhelmed him and carried him 
away. It is evident that the title of " Rabbi," with which 
he was at first contented, no longer sufficed him; even the 
title of prophet or messenger of God corresponded no longer 
with his ideas. The position he attributed to himself was 
that of a superhuman being, and he wished to be regarded 
as possessing a higher relationship with God than other 
men. But it is to be remarked that the words " super- 

563 Jesus uses the expression "Son of God," or "Son," as equivalent to 
"I," only in the fourth Gospel. The Synoptics use it only indirectly 
(Matt. 11: 27 and 28: 19; Mark 13: 32; Luke 10: 22). Besides, the 
first and last of these citations represent in the synoptic system a late 
interpolation conformed to the type of the Johannine discourse. 

564 Matt. 12: 8; Luke 6: 5. 

585 Matt. 12: 27; 28: 18. Luke 10: 22. 
see John 5; 22. 

567 Matt. 17: 18, 19; Luke 17: 6. 

568 Matt. 9:8. 

569 Matt. 9:2-8; Mark 2:5-9; Luke 5: 20, and 7: 47, 48. 

570 Matt. 12: 41, 42; 22: 43-45. Mark 12: 6. John 8: 25, 26. 

179 



LIFE OF JESUS 

human " and " supernatural," borrowed from our petty 
theology, were meaningless in the lofty religious conscious- 
ness of Jesus. To him nature and human development 
were not limited kingdoms external to God — paltry realities 
subject to laws of hopeless rigour. There was no super- 
nature for him, because there was no nature. Intoxicated 
with infinite love, he forgot the heavy chain which binds 
the spirit captive; at one bound he cleared the abyss, im- 
passable to the many, which the weakness of human facul- 
ties has made between man and God. 
*~ In these affirmations of Jesus we cannot but discover the 
germ of the doctrine which was later to make him a divine 
hypostasis, 571 by identifying him with the " Word," or 
" second God," 572 or " eldest Son of God," or the " Angel 
Metathronos," which Jewish theology had created from 
another, point of view. 573 In a measure Jewish theology 
was compelled to soften the extreme rigour of the older 
monotheism, by placing beside God an assessor to whom the 

671 See especially John 14 and the succeeding chapters. 

672 Philo in Eusebius, Prcepar. evang., 7: 13. 

573 See Philo, De migr. Abraham, § 1 ; Quod Deus immut. § 6; De con- 
jus, ling. §§ 14, 28; De profugis, § 20; De somniis, 1, § 37; De agric. Noe, 
§ 12; Qui s rerum divin. hwres. §§ 25, 26, 48, et seq. "Metathronos" 
(fxerdQpopos: that is, sharing the throne of God) is a sort of divine secre- 
tary, or accountant, holding the record of merits and faults: Bereschith 
rabba, 5:6c; Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 38 b; Chagiga, 15 a: Tar- 
gum of Jonathan, Gen. 5: 24. This theory of the Logos contains no 
Greek elements. The analogies that have been supposed in it with the 
Honover of the Parsees are also without foundation. The Minokhired, 
or "Divine Intelligence," is much like the Jewish Logos: see fragments 
of the book called Minokhired in Spiegel, Parsi-Grammatik, pp. 161, 162. 
But the development of the doctrine of the Minokhired among the Parsees 
is modern, and may imply a foreign influence. The " divine intelligence " 
(Mainyu-Khratu) appears in the Zendic books, but without serving as the 
basis of a theory; it only enters into certain invocations. The analogies 
which have been sought between the Jewish or Christian theory of the 
Word (Aoyos) and certain points of Egyptian theology may be not wholly 
valueless; but there is no evidence that this theory was borrowed from 
Egypt. 

180 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

eternal Father was supposed to delegate the government of 
the universe. The belief that certain men were incarna- 
tions of divine faculties or " powers " began to spread. 
About the same period the Samaritans possessed a thau- 
maturgist whom they identified with the " great power of 
God." 5T4 For nearly two centuries the speculative minds 
of Judaism had yielded to a tendency to personify specifi- 
cally the divine attributes and certain expressions relating 
to the Deity. Thus the " Breath of God/' to which fre- 
quent reference is made in the Old Testament, came to be 
considered a being apart — the Holy Spirit. In like man- 
ner the " Wisdom of God " and the " Word of God " be- 
came distinct personalities. This was the germ of the 
process from which have sprung the Sephiroth of the Cab- 
bala, the Mons of Gnosticism, the Christian hypostases, 
and all the barren mythology, consisting of personified 
abstractions, to which monotheism must have recourse when 
it desires to pluralise God. 

Jesus apparently remained a stranger to these theologi- 
cal subtleties, which were soon to fill the world with sterile 
disputations. Of the metaphysical theory of the Word, as 
it is to be found in the writings of his contemporary, Philo, 
in the Chaldean Targummim, and, even at this date, in 
the Book of Wisdom, no glimpse can be caught either in 
the Logia of Matthew, or in general in the Synoptics, the 
authentic interpreters of the words of Jesus. The doctrine 
of the Word in fact had nothing in common with Messian- 
ism. The Word of Philo and the Targummim is in no sense 
the Messiah. It was in later times that Jesus was identified 
with the Word, and that an entire new theology, very 
different from that of the " kingdom of God," was 

574 Acts 8: 10. 

575 Wisdom, 9: 1, 2; 16: 12; compare with 7: 12; 8: 5, 6; 9-11. These 
impersonations of Wisdom are found also in much older books — Proverbs 
8 and 9; Job 28. 

181 



LIFE OF JESUS 

created. 576 The essential character of the Word is that 
of creator and of providence; but Jesus never professed 
to have created the world or to govern it. His office was to 
be its judge and to regenerate it. The position of presid- 
ing judge at the final assizes of mankind was that which 
Jesus assigned to himself, and the character which all the 
first Christians attributed to him. 577 Until the great day- 
he was to sit at the right hand of God, as his Metathronos, 
his prime minister, and his future avenger. 578 The super- 
human Christ of the Byzantine Absides, seated as judge 
of the world, in the midst of apostles of the same rank as 
himself, and higher than the angels, who only stand by 
and serve, — such is the exact pictorial rendering of that 
conception of the Son of man, the principal features of 
which we find so strongly indicated even in the Book of 
Daniel. • .„ 

At all events the strictness of a studied scholastic 
theology had no existence in such a state of society. The 
whole group of ideas which we have just noted formed, 
in the minds of the disciples, a theological system so little 
settled that, according to them, the Son of God, who is 
a kind of divine double, acts purely as man. He is 
tempted, he is ignorant of many things, he disciplines him- 
self, he changes his opinion, 579 he is cast down and dis- 
couraged, he is submissive as a son to God. 580 He who is 
to judge the world knows not the day of judgment. 581 He 

576 Rev. 19: 13; John 1: 1-14. It will be further noted that even in 
the fourth Gospel the expression "Word" nowhere occurs excepting 
in the proem, and is never put by the writer in the mouth of Jesus. 

577 Acts 10: 42; Rom. 2: 16; 2 Cor. 5: 10. 

578 Matt. 26: 64; Mark 16: 19; Luke 22: 69; Acts 7: 55; Rom. 8: 34; 
Eph. 1:20; Col. 3: l;Heb. 1:3, 13; 8: 1; 10: 12, and 12:2; 1 Pet. 3: 22; 
with the passages before cited on the office of the Jewish Metathronos. 

579 Matt. 10: 5, compared with 28: 19; Mark 7: 24, 27, 29. 

580 Matt. 26: 39; Mark 14: 32-38; Luke 22: 41-44; John 12: 27. 
681 Mark 13: 32; cf. Matt. 24: 36. 

182 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

takes precautions for his safety. 582 Soon after his birth, 
it is found necessary to conceal him from powerful men 
who desire to slay him. 583 In exorcisms, the devil cheats 
him, and does not come forth at the first command. 5S4 In 
his miracles, we are sensible of painful effort — of ex- 
haustion, as though something went out of him. 585 All these 
are simply the deeds of a messenger of God, of a man pro- 
tected and favoured by God. 586 Neither logic nor sequence 
are to be sought here. The need which Jesus had of gain- 
ing reputation, and the enthusiasm of his disciples, caused 
contradictory notions to accumulate. To men specially 
filled with hopes of the coming of the Messiah, and to 
ardent readers of the books of Daniel and Enochs he was 
the Son of man; to Jews holding the ordinary faith and to 
readers of Isaiah and Micah, he was the Son of David; 
to his disciples, he was the Son of God, or simply the Son. 
Others, without thereby incurring the reproach of the dis- 
ciples, took him for John the Baptist risen from the dead, 
for Elias, or for Jeremiah, in conformity with the popular 
belief that the ancient prophets were about to reappear, in 
order to make ready for the time of the Messiah. 587 

Absolute conviction, or rather an enthusiasm which 
shielded him from even the possibility of doubt, covered all 
these audacities. With our cold and hesitant natures, we 
little understand how any one can be thus possessed by the 
idea of which he has made himself the apostle. To us, 
members of deeply serious races, conviction means sincerity 
to one's self. But sincerity to one's self has not much 

582 Matt. 12: 14-16; 14: 13; Mark 3: 6, 7; 9: 29, 30; John 7: 1-10. 

583 Matt. 2: 20. 

584 Matt. 17: 20; Mark 9: 25. 

585 Luke 8: 45, 46; John 11: 33, 38. 

586 Acts 2: 22. 

587 Matt. 14:*2; 16: 14; 17: 3-13. Mark 6: 14, 15; 8: 28. Luke 9: 
8, 9, 19. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

meaning for oriental peoples, little accustomed as they are 
to the subtleties of the critical spirit. Good faith and im- 
posture are words which, in our rigid consciences, are op- 
posed as two irreconcilable terms. In the East there are 
numberless ingenious loopholes of escape and circuitous 
paths from one to the other. Even highly exalted men, 
like the authors of apocryphal books, Daniel, for instance, 
and Enoch, committed, to aid their cause, and without the 
shadow of a scruple, acts which we should call frauds. 
Literal truth is of very little value to the oriental; he sees 
everything through the medium of his ideas, his interests, 
and his passions. 

History is impossible unless we frankly admit that there 
are many standards of sincerity. Faith knows no other law 
than the interests of what it holds to be the truth. The end 
pursued being for it absolutely sacred, it makes no scruple 
of employing faulty arguments to prove its thesis when 
good arguments are unsuccessful. If such and such a 
proof be not valid, how many others are! If such and 
such a miracle never occurred, how many others did oc- 
cur ! How many pious men, convinced of the truth 
of their religion, have sought to triumph over the stub- 
bornness of their fellows by the use of means the weakness 
of which was apparent to themselves ! How many stig- 
matists, epileptics, and convent visionaries have been com- 
pelled, by the influence of their environment and by their 
own belief, to acts of deception, either for the purpose of 
keeping abreast of others or to support a cause in peril! 
All great things are done through the people; we can lead 
the people only by adapting ourselves to its ideas. The 
philosopher who, knowing this, isolates and fortifies him- 
self in his integrity deserves high praise. But he who ac- 
cepts humanity with its illusions, and seeks to act with it 
and upon it, cannot be reproached. Caesar knew very well 
184 



CONCERNING THE MESSIAH 

that he was not the son of Venus ; France would not be what 
she is, had she not for a thousand years believed in the 
Holy Ampulla of Rheims. It is easy for us, feeble as 
we are, to call this falsehood, and, proud of our timid 
honesty, to heap abuse on the heroes who have accepted 
the battle of life under other conditions. When we have 
accomplished by our scruples what they accomplished by 
their falsehoods, we shall have a right to be severe on them. 
At least we must make a marked distinction between so- 
cieties like our own, where all takes place in the full light 
of reflection, and simple and credulous communities, in 
which the beliefs that have governed the ages have been 
born. Nothing great has been founded that is not built 
upon a legend. In such cases the only culprit is mankind, 
which is willing to be deceived. 



185 



CHAPTER XVI 

Miracles 

Two means of proof — miracles and the accomplishment 
of prophecies — could alone establish a supernatural mis- 
sion in the opinion of the contemporaries of Jesus. He 
himself, but more especially his disciples, employed these 
two methods of demonstration in perfect good faith. For 
a long time Jesus had been convinced that the prophets had 
only written with reference to himself. He recognised 
himself in their sacred oracles. He regarded himself as 
the mirror in which the whole prophetic spirit of Israel had 
read the future. The Christian school, perhaps even during 
the lifetime of its founder, sought to prove that Jesus cor- 
responded perfectly with all that the prophets had fore- 
told of the Messiah. 588 In many cases these similarities 
were superficial, and for us scarcely appreciable. Most 
frequently they were fortuitous or insignificant circum- 
stances in the Master's life which recalled to the disciples 
certain passages in the Psalms and the Prophets, in which, 
by reason of their constant preoccupation, they saw images 
of what was passing before their eyes. 589 The exegesis of 
the period thus consisted almost entirely in juggling with 
words, and in quotations made in an artificial and arbitrary 
manner. 590 The synagogue had no fixed official list of pas- 
sages relating to the future reign. Messianic references 
could be easily created, and consisted rather in artifices of 
style than in serious reasoning. 

588 For example, Matt. 1: 22; 2: 5, 6, 15, 18; 4: 15. 

589 Matt. 1: 23; 4: 6, 14; 26: 31, 54, 56; 27: 9, 35. Mark 14: 27; 15: 28. 
John 12: 14, 15; 18: 9; 19: 19, 24, 28, 36. 

690 ^y e see jjjg same thing on almost every page of the Talmud. 

186 



MIRACLES 

As to miracles, they were considered at this epoch the 
indispensable mark of the divine, and the sign of the pro- 
phetic vocation. The legends of Elijah and Elisha 
abounded in them. It was commonly believed that the Mes- 
siah would perform many. 591 At Samaria, a few miles from 
where Jesus was staying, a magician called Simon acquired 
an almost divine reputation by his wonders. 592 Later, when 
attempts were made to establish the fame of Apollonius 
of Tyana, and to prove that his life had been the sojourn 
of a god upon earth, success was deemed possible only by 
the invention of a vast cycle of miracles. 593 The Alex- 
andrian philosophers themselves, Plotinus and others, were 
reputed to have performed several. 594 Jesus was therefore 
compelled to choose between two alternatives — either to re- 
nounce his mission, or to become a thaumaturgist. It must 
be remembered that the whole ancient world, with the ex- 
ception of the great scientific schools of Greece and their 
Roman disciples, accepted miracles ; and that Jesus not only 
believed in them, but had not the least idea of an order of 
nature under the reign of law. On this point his knowledge 
was in no way superior to that of his contemporaries. In- 
deed, one of his most deeply-rooted opinions was that by 
faith and prayer man had entire power over nature. 595 The 
faculty of working miracles was regarded as a privilege 
frequently conferred upon men by God, 596 and as having 
nothing surprising in it. 

Time has changed that which constituted the power of 
the great founder of Christianity into something offensive 

591 John 7: 34; 4 Esdras, 13: 50. 

592 Acts 8: 9-11. 

593 See his biography by Philostratus. 

594 See Lives of the Sophists by Eunapius; Life of Plotinus by Por- 
phyry; of Proclus, by Marinus; of Isidore, ascribed to Damascius. 

595 Matt. 17: 19; 21: 21, 22. Mark 11: 23, 24. 

596 Matt. 9: 8. 

187 



LIFE OF JESUS 

to our ideas ; and if ever the worship of Jesus loses its hold 
on mankind, it will be precisely on account of those acts 
which originally made people believe in him. Criticism 
experiences no embarrassment before historical phenomena 
of this order. A thaumaturgist of our own day, unless he 
be of an extreme simplicity, like that shown by certain 
German stigmatists, is objectionable; for he performs mir- 
acles without believing in them; he is a mere charlatan. 
But if we take a Francis of Assisi, the question becomes 
altogether different; the cycle of miracles connected with 
the origin of the Franciscan order, far from giving offence, 
affords us real pleasure. The founders of Christianity lived 
in a state of poetic ignorance as complete as that of St. 
Clare and the tres socii. They thought it perfectly natural 
that their Master should have interviews with Moses and 
Elias, that he should command the elements, that he should 
heal the sick. It must also be remembered that every idea 
loses somewhat of its purity, as soon as it aspires to realisa- 
tion. Success is never attained without delicacy of soul 
suffering some injury. Such is the weakness of the human 
mind that the best causes are usually won by bad reason- 
ing. The demonstrations of the primitive Christian apolo- 
gists rest on very poor arguments. Moses, Christopher 
Columbus, and Mahomet triumphed over obstacles only by 
constantly taking men's weakness into account, and by 
sometimes withholding the genuine reasons for the truth. 
It is probable that the hearers of Jesus were more im- 
pressed by his miracles than by his preaching, profoundly 
divine as it was. It must be added that popular rumour, 
both before and after the death of Jesus, no doubt enor- 
mously exaggerated the number of occurrences of this kind. 
The types of Gospel miracles in fact present little variety; 
they repeat each other and seemed fashioned from a very 
small number of models, suited to the taste of the country. 
188 



MIRACLES 

Amongst the miraculous narratives tediously enumerated 
in the Gospels, it is impossible to distinguish the miracles 
attributed to Jesus, either during his lifetime or after his 
death, from those in which he consented to play an active 
part. Above all it is impossible to ascertain whether their 
offensive characteristics — the groaning, struggling, and 
features savouring of j ugglery 597 — are really historical, or 
whether they are fruits of the belief of the compilers, 
strongly imbued with theurgy, and, in this respect, living in 
a world similar to that of the " spiritualists " of our own 
days. 598 It was a popular belief indeed that the divine 
virtue in man was epileptic and convulsive in character. 599 
Almost all the miracles that Jesus believed he performed 
seemed to have been miracles of healing. Medicine was at 
that period in Judaea what it still remains in the East, that 
is to say, quite unscientific and absolutely given over to 
individual inspiration. Scientific medicine, founded by 
Greece five centuries before, was at the time of Jesus un- 
known to the Jews of Palestine. In such a state of knowl- 
edge the presence of a man greater than average men, 
treating the patient with gentleness, and giving him, by 
tangible signs, assurance of his recovery, is frequently a 
decisive remedy. Who would dare to assert that in many 
cases, certain injuries always excepted, the touch of a gen- 
tle and beautiful woman is not worth all the resources of 
pharmacy? Cure is effected by the mere pleasure of see- 
ing her. She gives what she can, a smile, a hope, and it is 
not in vain. 

Jesus had no more conception than his compatriots of a 

697 Luke 8: 45, 46; John 11: 33, 38. 

598 Acts 2: 2-13; 4: 31; 8: 15-19; 10: 44-47. For almost a century 
the apostles and their converts dream only of miracles: see Acts, the 
Pauline writings, Papias in Euseb. 3: 39, etc.; and compare Mark 3: 15, 
and 16: 17, 18, 20. 

599 Mark 5: 30; Luke 6: 3, and 8: 46; John 11: 33, 38. 

189 



LIFE OF JESUS 

rational medical science; like almost every one else, he be- 
lieved that healing was to be effected by religious practices, 
and such a belief was perfectly consistent. From the mo- 
ment that disease was regarded as a punishment for sin/ 00 
or the act of a demon/ 01 and by no means as the result of 
physical causes, the best physician was the holy man pos- 
sessed of power in the supernatural world. Healing was 
considered a moral act; and Jesus, who felt the moral power 
within him, believed himself specially gifted to heal. Con- 
vinced that the touching of his robe, the laying on of his 
hands, or the application of his saliva 602 did good to the 
sick, he would have been harsh indeed had he refused to 
those that suffered a solace which it was in his power to 
bestow. Healing the sick was regarded as one of the signs 
of the kingdom of God, and was always associated with the 
emancipation of the poor. 603 Both were signs of the mighty 
revolution which was to culminate in the redress of all in- 
firmities. The Essenes, who have so many bonds of rela- 
tionship with Jesus, also had the reputation of being very 
potent spiritual physicians. 604 

One of the kinds of healing which Jesus most often 
practised was exorcism, or the expulsion of demons. A 
strange disposition to believe in demons pervaded all minds. 
It was a universal opinion, not only in Judaea, but through- 
out the whole world, that demons seized upon the bodies of 
certain people and made them act against their own will. 
A Persian Div, mentioned several times in the Avesta, 605 
Aeschma-daeva, the " Div of concupiscence," adopted by 
the Jews under the name of Asmodeus, m came to be con- 

600 John 5: 14; 9: 1-3, 34. 

601 Matt. 9: 32, 33; 12: 22. Luke 13: 11, 16. 

602 Luke 8: 43-45; 4: 40. Mark 8: 23. John 9: 6. 

603 Matt. 11: 5; 15: 30, 31. Luke 9: 1,2,6. 

304 See ante, p. 102, note. 605 Vendidad, 11: 26; Yaqna, 10: 18. 

606 Tobit 3: 8; 6: 14. Babylonian Talmud, Gittin, 68 a. 

190 



MIRACLES 

sidered the cause of all hysterical maladies in women. 607 
Epilepsy, mental and nervous diseases, in which the patient 
seems no longer to belong to himself, 608 and infirmities the 
cause of which is not outwardly apparent, like deafness 
and dumbness, 609 were explained in the same fashion. The 
admirable treatise, " On Sacred Disease," by Hippocrates, 
which had set forth the true principles of medicine on this 
subject, four centuries and a half before Jesus, had not 
banished so great an error from the world. It was believed 
that there were more or less efficacious means of driving 
away the demons ; and the occupation of the exorcist was a 
regular profession like that of the physician. 610 There can 
be no doubt that Jesus had in his lifetime the reputation 
of possessing the greatest secrets of the art. 611 At that time 
there were many lunatics in Judaea, doubtless in consequence 
of the general mental excitement. These mad folk, who 
were allowed to wander about at large, as they are still in 
the same regions, dwelt in the abandoned sepulchral caves 
which were the usual resorts of vagrants. Jesus had great 
influence over these unhappy beings. 612 A thousand sin- 
gular incidents were told concerning his cures, in which 
all the credulity of the time found full scope. But here 
again the difficulties need not be exaggerated. The dis- 
orders that were explained by " possessions " were often 
very slight. At the present day in Syria people who are 
only somewhat eccentric are looked upon as mad or pos- 

607 Comp. Mark 16: 9; Luke 8:3. Gospel of the Infancy, 16, 33; 
Syrian code in Land's Anecdota Syriaca, 1 : 152. 

608 Josephus, Wars, 7, 6: 2. Lucian, Philopseud., 16. Philostratus, 
Life of Apollonius, 3: 30; 4: 20. Aretaeus, De causis morb. chron., 1: 4. 

609 Matt. 9: 33; 12: 22. Mark 9: 16, 24. Luke 11: 14. 

610 Tobit 8: 2, 3. Matt. 12: 27. Mark, 9: 38. Acts 19: 13. Jose- 
phus, Antiq., 8, 2: 5. Justin, Tryph., 85. Lucian, Epigr., 23. 

611 Matt. 17: 20. Mark 9: 24-29. 

612 Matt. 8: 28; 9:34; 12: 43^5; 17: 14-21. Mark 5: 1-15. Luke 
8: 27-36. 

191 



LIFE OF JESUS 

sessed by a demon, these two ideas being expressed by the 
same word — medjnoun. 613 In such cases a gentle word 
often suffices to expel the demon. Such, no doubt, was 
the method used by Jesus. Who knows whether his fame as 
an exorcist were not spread almost without his own knowl- 
edge? Residents in the East are occasionally surprised to 
find themselves, after some time, enjoying a great reputa- 
tion as doctors, sorcerers, or discoverers of treasures, with- 
out being able to account to themselves for the facts which 
have given rise to these fancies. 614 

Many circumstances moreover seem to indicate that 
Jesus only became a thaumaturgist late in life and against 
his own inclinations. Frequently he works his miracles 
with reluctance, only after he has been besought to do so, 
reproaching those who ask for them with grossness of 
mind. 615 One particular point, apparently inexplicable, is 
the care which he takes to work his miracles in secret, and 
his request, addressed to those whom he heals, to tell no 
one. 616 When the demons wish to hail him as Son of God, 
he forbids them to open their mouths ; it is in spite of him- 

818 The phrase "thou hast a devil" (Matt. 11: 18; Luke 7: 33; John 7: 
20, 8: 48, and 10: 20) should be rendered "thou art mad,"- — in Arabic, 
mejnoun ente. In all classic antiquity the verb SaifjLovdco signifies "to 
be insane." 

614 A man who had to do with recent movements of sectaries in Persia 
informed me that, having established in his neighbourhood a sort of free- 
masonry, on a footing greatly enjoyed, he presently found himself ranked 
as a prophet, and was astonished at hearing daily of the prodigies he had 
performed. A multitude of people were ready to die for him. His 
popular fame (legende) ran before him, as it were, and would have 
dragged him along if the Persian government had not put him out of 
the reach of his disciples. This man told me that he had himself come 
very near being made a prophet; that he had learned in that way how 
such things happen, and that they take place just as I had described 
them in the Life of Jesus. 

615 Matt. 12: 39; 16: 4; 17: 16. Mark 8: 17-21; 9: 18. Luke 9: 
41; 11: 29. 

616 Matt. 8: 4; 9: 30-31; 12: 16-20. Mark 5: 43; 7: 36; 8: 26. 

192 



MIRACLES 

self that they recognise him. 617 These features are 
especially to be noted in Mark, who is pre-eminently the 
evangelist of miracles and exorcisms. It seems as though 
the disciple who furnished the fundamental teachings of 
this Gospel used to importune Jesus with his admiration 
for wonders, and, as though the Master, weary of a repu- 
tation which weighed upon him, had often said, " See thou 
say nothing to any man." On one occasion this decord- 
ance in views led to a singular outburst, 618 a fit of im- 
patience, in which the annoyance these perpetual demands 
of weak minds caused Jesus, broke forth. At times one 
might imagine that the position of thaumaturgist was dis- 
tasteful to him, and that he tried to give as little publicity 
as possible to the wonders which, in a manner, grew be- 
neath his feet. When his enemies asked a miracle of him, 
especially a celestial miracle, a " sign from heaven," he 
persistently refused. 619 We may therefore be permitted 
to believe that his reputation as a thaumaturgist was im- 
posed upon him, that he did not resist it much, but that, 
at the same time, he did nothing to encourage it, and that, 
at all events, he felt the vanity of popular opinion in the 
matter. 

It would show lack of a good historical method to attach 
over-much importance to our personal prejudices on this 
point. The essential condition of true criticism is to 
understand the great diversity of view between different 
ages, and to free one's self from the instinctive habits due 
to a purely rational education. To avoid the objections 
which might be raised against the character of Jesus, we 
ought not to suppress facts which, in the eyes of his con- 

617 Mark 1: 24, 25, 34, and 3: 12; Luke 4: 41. Compare the Life of 
Isidore, ascribed to Damascms, 56. 

618 Matt. 17: 16; Mark 9: 18; Luke 9: 41. 

619 Matt. 12: 38, 39; 16: 1-4. Mark 8: 11. Luke 11: 29-32. 

193 



LIFE OF JESUS 

temporaries, were of the highest importance. 620 It would 
be easy to say that these are the additions of disciples far 
inferior to their Master, who, being unable to appreciate 
his true grandeur, have sought to magnify him by feats 
of illusion unworthy of him. But the four narrators of 
the life of Jesus are unanimous in extolling his miracles; 
one of them, Mark, the spokesman of the apostle Peter, 621 
insists so strongly on this point, that, were we to trace the 
character of Christ from his Gospel exclusively, we should 
represent him as an exorcist in possession of charms of rare 
efficacy, as a very powerful and awe-inspiring sorcerer such 
as people prefer to avoid. 622 We will admit then, without 
hesitation, that acts which would now be considered char- 
acteristic of illusion or madness occupied a large place in 
the life of Jesus. Is the sublime aspect of such a life to be 
sacrificed to these uninviting features? By no means. A 
mere sorcerer would not have brought about a moral revolu- 
tion like that effected by Jesus. If the thaumaturgist had 
in Jesus effaced the moralist and the religious reformer, 
he would have been the founder, not of Christianity, but of 
a school of theurgy. 

The problem, moreover, similarly presents itself in the 
case of all saints and religious founders. Things now con- 
sidered morbid, such as epilepsy and hallucinations, were 
formerly marks of power and greatness. Physicians have 
a name for the disease which made the fortune of Ma- 
homet. 623 Almost in our own days the men who have done 
most for their kind (the excellent Vincent de Paul him- 

630 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 3: 3. 621 Papias in Euseb., 3: 39. 

622 Mark 6: 40; 5: 15, 17, 33; 6: 49, 50; 10: 32: cf. Matt. 8: 27, 34; 
9: 8; 14: 27; 17: 6, 7; also Luke 4: 36; 5: 17; 8: 25, 35,37; 9: 34. The 
apocryphal gospel of Thomas the "Israelite" carries this feature to the 
most shocking absurdity. Compare the "Miracles of the Infancy" 
inThilo, Cod. apocryph.N . T., p. 110, note. 

623 The hysteria muscularis of Schonlein (Sprenger: Das Leben und 
die Lehre des Mohammad, 1: 207 et seq.). 

194 



MIRACLES 

self!) were,, whether they desired it or not, thaumaturgists. 
If we proceed from the principle that every historical per- 
son to whom have been attributed acts which we in the 
nineteenth century hold to be irrational or suggestive of 
quackery, was either a madman or a charlatan, all criticism 
is nullified. The school of Alexandria was a noble school, 
yet nevertheless it gave itself up to the practice of an ex- 
travagant theurgy. Socrates and Pascal were not exempt 
from hallucinations. Facts must be explained by propor- 
tionate causes. Weak points in the human mind only en- 
gender weakness; great things always have great causes in 
man's nature, although they are often developed amidst a 
number of petty features which, to superficial minds, 
eclipse their grandeur. 

In a general sense therefore it may be truly said that 
Jesus was only a thaumaturgist and exorcist in spite of him- 
self. As always happens in great and divine careers, he 
accepted miracles exacted by public opinion rather than 
performed them. Miracles are usually the work of the 
public, and not of him to whom they are attributed. Jesus 
persistently refused to work miracles which the multitude 
would have created for him; the greatest miracle would 
have been his refusal to perform any ; never would the laws 
of history and popular psychology have suffered a greater 
derogation. He was no more free than St. Bernard or St. 
Francis of Assisi to moderate the thirst of the multitude 
and his disciples for the marvellous. The miracles of Jesus 
were a violence done him by his age, a concession forced 
from him by passing necessity. Exorcist and thaumaturgus 
have alike fallen from their high place; but the religious 
reformer will live eternally. 

Even those who did not believe in him were impressed 
by these acts and sought to witness them. 624 The pagans 
624 Matt. 14: 1, 2. Mark 6: 14. Luke 9: 7; 23: 8. 
195 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and people unacquainted with him had a feeling of dread, 
and would fain have driven him out of their district. 625 
Many thought perhaps of bringing his name into ill repute 
by connecting it with seditious movements. 626 But the 
purely moral tendency of the character of Jesus and his 
aloofness from politics saved him from such entanglements. 
His kingdom was in the circle of child-like men, whom the 
same freshness of imagination, the same foretaste of 
heaven, had grouped and kept steadfast around him. 

625 Matt. 8: 34; Mark 5: 17; Luke 8: 37. 

626 John 6: 14, 15; comp. Luke 22: 36-38. 



196 



CHAPTER XVII 

Final Conceptions of the Kingdom of God 

We suppose that this last phase of the activity of Jesus 
lasted for about eighteen months, from the time of his 
return from the Passover of the year 31 until his journey to 
the feast of Tabernacles in the year 32. 627 During this 
period the conceptions of Jesus were not enriched by the 
addition of any new element; but all that was already 
within him grew and developed with an ever-increasing 
degree of power and audacity. 

The fundamental idea of Jesus from his earliest days 
was the establishment of the kingdom of God. But this 
kingdom of God, as we have already said, appears to have 
been understood by Jesus in very diverse senses. At times 
he might be taken for a democratic leader, desiring noth- 
ing more than the triumph of the poor and the outcast. At 
other times, the kingdom of God is the literal consumma- 
tion of apocalyptic visions relating to the Messiah. Lastly, 
the kingdom of God is often the spiritual kingdom, and 
the deliverance at hand is a deliverance of the soul. The 
revolution desired by Jesus in this last sense is the one 
which has really taken place, the foundation of a new 

627 John 5: 1; 7: 2. In the scheme of the fourth Gospel the public life 
of Jesus seems to be reckoned as lasting two or three years. The Synop- 
tics give no clear statement as to this, though their view seems to bring 
all the incidents within the compass of one year. (Compare the similar 
opinion of the Valentinians in Irenaeus, Adv. haer. 1, 1: 3; 2, 22: 1, 2; 
also that of the Clementine Homilies, 17: 19.) If, as would appear, the 
life of Jesus ended a.d. 33, we get from Luke 3:1a duration of five 
years. In any case, since Pilate was deposed in a.d. 36, the public career 
of Jesus cannot have exceeded seven years. The uncertainty on this 
point comes, no doubt, from the fact that the beginning of his public 
life was an event not so precisely defined as is generally supposed. 

197 



LIFE OF JESUS 

worship, purer than that of Moses. All these thoughts 
appear to have existed simultaneously in the mind of Jesus. 
The first however — that of a temporal revolution — does 
not appear to have impressed him greatly. He never con- 
sidered the earth, or the riches of the earth, or material 
power, as being worth any thought; he had no worldly 
ambition. At times, as a natural consequence, his great 
religious importance was in danger of being transformed 
into a social importance. Men came asking him to act 
as judge and arbitrator in questions affecting their material 
interests. Jesus haughtily rejected such proposals, treat- 
ing them almost as insults. 628 Thinking only of his 
heavenly ideal, he never abandoned his disdainful poverty. 
As to the other two conceptions of the kingdom of God, 
Jesus always appears to have held them simultaneously. 
Had he been only an enthusiast, led astray by the apoc- 
alypses on which popular imagination was nourished, he 
would have remained an obscure sectary, inferior to those 
whose ideas he followed. Had he only been a puritan, a 
sort of Channing or " Savoyard vicar," he would un- 
doubtedly have had no success. The two parts of his sys- 
tem, or rather his two conceptions of the kingdom of God, 
lean on each other; and this mutual support has been the 
cause of his incomparable success. The earliest Christians 
were dreamers, moving in a circle of ideas which we should 
call visionary; but, at the same time, they were the heroes 
of that social war which culminated in the enfranchisement 
of the conscience and in the establishment of a religion 
from which the pure worship proclaimed by the founder 
will finally proceed. 

The apocalyptic ideas of Jesus in their completest form 

may be thus summed up. The actual state of mankind is 

nearing its end. This end will be an immense revolution, 

628 Luke 12: 13, 14. 

198 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

" an anguish " like the pains of child-birth, a paragenesis, 
or, in the words of Jesus himself, a '' new birth/' 629 pre- 
ceded by dark calamities and heralded by strange phenom- 
ena. 630 On the great day the sign of the Son of man will 
shine forth in the heavens ; it will be a startling and lumi- 
nous vision like that of Sinai, a mighty storm rending the 
clouds, a fiery meteor flashing in the twinkling of an eye 
from east to west. The Messiah will appear in the 
clouds/ 31 clad in glory and majesty, to the sound of trum- 
pets, and surrounded by angels. His disciples will be 
seated on thrones beside him. Then the dead will rise and 
the Messiah proceed to judgment. 632 

At this judgment men will be divided into two classes 
according to their works, 633 and the angels will execute the 
sentences. 634 The elect will enter into a delightful place of 
sojourn which has been prepared for them from the be- 
ginning of the world ; 635 there they will be seated, clothed 

629 Matt. 19:28. 

630 Matt. 24: 3-14; Mark 13: 4-8; Luke 17: 22-30, and 21: 7-11, 
25-28. It should be noted that the picture of "the end of the age," here 
ascribed by the Synoptics to Jesus, contains many features which belong 
to the siege of Jerusalem (a.d. 70). Luke wrote some time after this 
siege (21 : 9, 20, 24) ; while the composition of Matthew, on the contrary 
(24: 15, 16, 22, 29), brings us to the very moment of the siege, or 
just after. No doubt, however, Jesus foretold great terrors as sure to 
precede his reappearance. These terrors were an essential feature in 
every Jewish apocalypse, — Enoch 99, 100, 102, 103 (Dillman's Division) ; 
Carm. Sibyll. 3: 334, 633; 4: 168, and 5: 511, with the verses following; 
Assumption of Moses, chaps. 5, 6 (ed. Hilgenfeld) ; Apocalypse of Baruch 
in Ceriani, Monum. 1, 2: 79 et seq. In Daniel, also, the reign of the 
saints will not come till the desolation shall have reached its height 
(7: 25-27; 8: 23-26; 9: 26, 27; 12: 1-3). 

631 Dan. 7: 13; Carm. Sibyll. 3: 286, 652; Rev. 1: 7. 

632 Matt. 16: 27; 19: 28; 20: 21; 23: 39; 24: 30, 31; 25: 31-33; 26: 64. 
Mark 14: 62. Luke 13: 35; 22: 30, 69. 1 Cor. 15: 52; 1 Thess. 4: 15-17. 
Here the Christian idea departs widely from the Jewish: see 4 Esdras 
5; 56-6: 6; 12: 33, 34. 

633 Matt. 13: 38^3; 25: 33. 

634 Matt. 13: 39, 41, 49. 

635 Matt. 25: 34; comp. John 14: 2. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

with light, at a feast presided over by Abraham/ 36 the patri- 
archs, and the prophets. They will be the smaller num- 
ber. 637 The rest will depart into Gehenna. Gehenna was 
the valley to the west of Jerusalem. There, at various 
times, the worship of fire had been practised, and the place 
had become a sort of sewer. Gehenna, therefore, in the 
ideas of Jesus, was a gloomy, filthy valley, a subterranean 
gulf full of fire. 638 Those excluded from the kingdom 
shall there be burnt and devoured by the undying worm, 
in the company of Satan and his rebel angels. 639 There 
shall there be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 640 The king- 
dom of heaven will be as a closed room, lighted from within, 
in the midst of a world of darkness and torments. 641 

This new order of things will be eternal. Paradise and 
Gehenna will be without end. An impassable abyss divides 
one from the other. 642 The Son of man, seated at the right 
hand of God, will rule over this final condition of the world 
and mankind. 643 

That all this was taken literally by the disciples, and at 
certain moments by the Master himself, appears absolutely 
clear from the writings of the time. If the first Christian 
generation possessed one profound and constant belief, it 
was that the end of the world was near, 644 and that the great 

836 Matt. 8: 11; 13; 43; 26: 29. Luke 13: 28; 16: 22; 22: 30. 

637 Luke 13: 23—30. 

638 Comp. Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 39 a. 

639 Matt. 25: 41. The idea of fallen angels, so developed in the Book 
of Enoch, was universally believed in by those directly about Jesus: see 
Jude 6, 7; 2 Peter 2: 4, 11; Rev. 12: 9; Luke 10: 18; John 8: 44. 

640 Matt. 5:22; 8: 12; 10:28; 13:40, 42, 50; 18:8; 24:51; 25:30. 
Mark 9: 43-49. 

641 Matt. 8: 12; 22: 13; 25: 30. Comp. Josephus, Wars, 3, 8: 5. 

642 Luke 16: 28. 

643 Mark 3: 29; Luke 22: 69; Acts 7: 55. 

644 Luke 18: 8; Acts 2: 17, and 3: 19, 20; 1 Cor. 15: 23, 24, 52; 1 Thess. 
3: 13, 4: 14-17, and 5: 23; 2 Thess. 2: 1-11 (here tWrTj/cev, in the 
second verse, indicates a crisis close at hand; while Paul denies that the 

200 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

" revelation " 645 of Christ was about to take place. The 
startling proclamation, " The time is at hand/' which opens 
and closes the Apocalypse/ 46 the incessantly reiterated 
appeal, " He that hath ears to hear, let him hear ! " 647 were 
rallying cries of hope for the whole apostolic age. A 
Syrian expression, Maran atha, " Our Lord cometh ! " 648 
became a sort of password, which believers employed 
amongst themselves to strengthen their faith and hopes. 
The Apocalj-pse, written in the year 68 of our era, 649 de- 
clares that the end will come in three years and a half, 650 
and the " Ascension of Isaiah " adopts a closely similar 
calculation. 651 

Jesus never indulged in such precision of detail. When 
he was questioned as to the time of his advent, he always 
refused to reply; indeed, he declared that the date of the 
great day was known only by the Father, who had revealed 
it neither to the angels nor to the Son. 652 He said that the 
time when the kingdom of God was most anxiously expected 
was just that at which it would not appear. 653 He con- 
stantly repeated that his coming would be a surprise, as in 
the days of Noah and of Lot ; that we must be on our guard, 
always ready to set out; that each one must watch and keep 

end is so near, but in verses 7, 8, asserts that it is very near) ; 1 Tim. 6: 14; 
2 Tim. 4:1-8; Titus 2: 13; James 5: 3, 8; Jude 16-21; 2 Pet. chap. 3; 
Rev. throughout,— in particular 1: 1;2:5, 16 ; 3: II; 6: 11; 11: 14; 22: 
6, 7, 12, 20. Compare 2 Esdras 4: 26. 

645 Luke 17: 30; 1 Cor. 1: 7, 8; 2 Thess. 1: 7; 1 Pet. 1: 7, 13; Rev. 1: 8. 

646 Rev. 1: 3; 22: 10 (comp. 1: 1). 

847 Matt. 11: 15; 13: 9, 43. Mark 4: 9, 23; 7: 16. Luke 8: 8; 14: 35. 
Rev. 2: 7, 11, 27, 29; 3: 6, 13, 22; 13: 9. 
648 1 Cor. 16:22. 

849 Rev., chap. 17. The sixth emperor here given (5: 10) as the one 
who "now is," is Galba; the "beast about to come," whose "number" 
is given in cipher (13: 18), is Nero. 

850 Rev. 4: 2, 3; 12: 6, 14. Comp. Dan. 7: 25; 12: 7. 

651 Chap. 4: 12, 14 (comp. Cedrenus, p. 68: Paris, 1647). 

652 Matt. 24: 36; Mark 13: 32. 

653 Luke 17: 20; comp. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 97 a. 

201 



LIFE OF JESUS 

his lamp trimmed as for a wedding procession, which ar- 
rives unexpectedly ; 654 that the Son of man would come 
like a thief, at an hour when men would not expect him ; 655 
that he would appear as a great flash of light, running 
from one end of the heavens to the other. 656 But his 
declarations on the proximity of the catastrophe leave no 
room for any equivocation. 657 " This generation," he says, 
" shall not pass away, till all things be accomplished. . . . 
There be some of them that stand here, which shall in no 
wise taste of death, till they see the kingdom of God." 658 
He reproaches those who do not believe in him, for not 
being able to read the signs of the kingdom to come. 
" When it is evening, ye say, It will be fair weather: for 
the heaven is red. And in the morning, It will be foul 
weather to-day; for the sky is red and lowering. Ye know 
how to discern the face of the heaven; but ye cannot dis- 
cern the signs of the times." 659 By an illusion common 
to all great reformers, Jesus imagined the end to be much 
nearer than it actually was; he did not take into account 
the sluggishness of human movements ; he thought to realise 
in a single day that which, eighteen centuries later, has 
still to be achieved. 

These formal declarations absorbed the minds of the 
Christian family for nearly seventy years. It was believed 
that some of the disciples would behold the day of final 
revelation without dying. John especially was reputed to 
be of this number ; 660 many believed that he would never 
die. Perhaps this was a later opinion caused, towards the 

654 Matt. 24: 36^1; Mark 13: 32-35; Luke 12: 35-40; 17: 20, 21. 

655 Luke 12: 40; 2 Pet. 3: 10. 
658 Luke 17: 24. 

657 Matt. 10: 23; 24, 25 throughout, in particular 24: 59, 34. Mark 
13: 30. Luke 13: 35* 21: 28-33. 

658 Matt. 16: 28; 23: 36, 39; 24: 34. Mark 8: 39. Luke 9: 27; 21: 32. 

659 Matt. 16: 2-4; Luke 12: 54-56. 

660 John 21: 22, 23. 

202 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

close of the first century, by the advanced age which John 
seems to have reached — this age having given rise to the 
belief that God wished to prolong his life indefinitely until 
the great day, so as to realise the words of Jesus. When 
he in his turn died, the faith of many was shaken, and his 
disciples attached to the prediction of Christ a less pro- 
nounced meaning. 661 

While Jesus fully admitted the apocalyptic beliefs, as 
they are to be found in the apocryphal Jewish books, he 
admitted the doctrine, which is the complement, or rather 
the condition of them all — namely, the resurrection of the 
dead. This doctrine, as we have already remarked, 662 was 
still somewhat new in Israel; many people either did not 
know it or did not believe it. 663 It was an article of faith 
to the Pharisees and the fervent adherents of Messianic 
beliefs. 664 Jesus accepted it unreservedly, but always in 
its most idealistic sense. Many imagined that in the resus- 
citated world they would eat, drink, and marry. Jesus in- 
deed admits a new Passover, a table, and a new wine into 
his kingdom; but he expressly excludes marriage from it. 665 
On this subject the Sadducees had an argument, coarse in 
appearance, but one which really conformed with the old 
theology. It will be remembered that, according to the 
ancient sages, a man survived only in his children. The 
Mosaic code had consecrated this patriarchal theory by a 
curious institution — the levirate law. 666 From this the Sad- 

661 Mark 9:9; Luke 20: 27-38. 

662 Dan. 12: 2, 3. 2 Mace. 7; 12: 45, 46; 14: 46. Acts 32: 6, 8. 
Josephus, Antiq., 18, 1: 3; Wars, 2, 8: 14, and 3, 8: 5. 

663 Matt. 26: 29; Luke 22: 30. 
664 Deut. 25: 5-10. 

665 Matt. 22: 24-28; Luke 20: 34-38; Ebionite Gospel ("of the Egyp- 
tians") in Clem. Alex. Strom. 2: 9, 13; Clem. Rom. Epist. 2: 12; Baby- 
lonian Talmud, Berakoth, 17 a. 

686 Luke 14: 14; 20: 35, 36. So Paul: 1 Cor. 15: 23-28; 1 Thess. 4: 
12-17 (see ante, p. 117): comp. 4 Esdras, 9: 22. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

ducees drew subtle deductions against the resurrection. 
Jesus escaped them by the formal declaration that in the 
life eternal, differences of sex would no longer exist, and 
that men would be like the angels. 667 Sometimes he seems 
to promise resurrection only to the righteous, the punish- 
ment of the wicked consisting in complete death and an- 
nihilation. 668 Oftener, however, Jesus declares that the 
resurrection will bring eternal confusion to the wicked. 

It will be seen that in all these theories there was nothing 
absolutely new. The Gospels and the apostolic writings 
scarcely contain anything as regards apocalyptic doctrines 
save what might be found already in " Daniel," " Enoch," 
the " Sibylline Oracles," and the " Assumption of Moses," 
which are books of Jewish origin. 669 Jesus accepted these 
ideas, which were generally diffused among his contem- 
poraries. He made them his basis of action, or rather 
one of his bases; for he had too profound an idea of his 
true work to establish it solely upon such fragile principles 
— principles so liable to receive the crushing refutation of 
actual facts. 

It is indeed evident that such a doctrine, taken by itself 
in a literal fashion, could have no future. The world falsi- 
fied it by continuing to exist. One generation at the most 
was the limit of its endurance. The faith of the first 
Christian generation is intelligible, but the faith of the 
second generation is no longer so. After the death of 
John, or of the last survivor, whoever he might be, of the 
group which had seen the Master, the words of Jesus were 

887 Chap. 21 of the Fourth Gospel is an addition, as shown by the 
closing formula of the previous portion in chap. 20: SI. But the addition 
followed closely the publication of this Gospel. 

868 See ante, p. 117. 

889 Dan. 2-6-8, 10-13; Enoch 1, 93: 9, 56; also 45, 57, 62 (perhaps 
interpolated); Carm. Sibyll. 3: 573, 652, 766, 795 et seq.; Assumption 
of Moses, Hilgenfeld, N. T. extra can. rec. p. 99 et seq. 

204, 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

convicted of falsity. 670 Had the doctrine of Jesus been 
simply belief in an approaching end of the world, it would 
certainly be now sleeping in oblivion. What then has saved 
it? The great breadth of Gospel conceptions, which has 
permitted ideas suited to very diverse intellectual conditions 
to be found under the same symbol. The world has not 
ended, as Jesus announced, and as his disciples believed 
it would end. But it has been renewed, and in one sense 
renewed as Jesus desired. It is because his thought was 
two-sided that it has been fruitful. His dreams have not 
suffered the fate of so many others which have crossed 
the human mind, because they concealed a germ of life 
which, having been introduced, thanks to a coating of 
fable, into the bosom of humanity, has thus borne eternal 
fruits. 

And let it not be said that this is a benevolent interpreta- 
tion, imagined in order to clear the honour of our great 
Master from the cruel contradiction inflicted on his dreams 
by reality. No, indeed; this true kingdom of God, this 
kingdom of the spirit, which makes of each man both 
king and priest; this kingdom which, like the grain of 
mustard-seed, has become a tree which shades the world, 
and amidst the branches of which the birds have their 
nests, was understood, desired, and founded by Jesus. By 
the side of the false, cold, impossible idea of an ostentatious 
advent, he conceived the real city of God, the true " palin- 
genesis," the Sermon on the Mount, the raising up of the 
weak, the love of the people, esteem for the poor, and the 
restoration of all that is humble, and true, and simple. 
This restoration he has depicted as an incomparable artist, 
in touches which will last for eternity. Each one of us 
owes that which is best in himself to him. Let us forgive 

85 ° The distress thus given to the Christian conscience is ingenuously 
reflected in 2 Pet. 3: 8-10 (probably of the date here referred to). 

205 



LIFE OF JESUS 

him his hopes of a vain apocalypse, and of a great tri- 
umphal coming upon the clouds of heaven. Perhaps these 
were the errors of others rather than his own; and if it be 
true that he himself shared the general illusion, what mat- 
ter, since his dream made him strong in the face of death, 
and sustained him in a strife for which otherwise he might 
have been unequal? 

We must then attach several meanings to the divine city 
conceived by Jesus. Had his only thought been that the 
end of time was at hand, and that we must make ready for 
it, he would not have surpassed John the Baptist. To 
renounce a world on the point of crumbling away, to detach 
one's self little by little from the present life, and to aspire 
to the kingdom about to come, would have been the one 
point in his preaching. The teaching of Jesus had always 
a much wider bearing. He proposed to create a new state 
of humanity, and not merely to prepare the end of that 
actually existent. Had Elias or Jeremiah come to earth 
again to prepare men for the supreme crisis, they would not 
have preached as he did. This is so true, that the morality, 
attributed to his latter days, has been found to be the 
eternal morality, that which has saved mankind. Jesus 
himself in many cases employs fashions of speech which do 
not accord in the least with the apocalyptic theory. He 
often declares that the kingdom of God has already begun ; 
that every man bears it within himself, and, if he be 
worthy, can partake of it ; that each one silently creates this 
kingdom by true conversion of heart. 671 The kingdom of 
God is then only righteousness, a better order of things 
than that which exists, the reign of justice which the faith- 
ful, according to their powers, ought to help in founding; 
or, again, freedom of soul, something analogous to the 
Buddhist " deliverance," the fruit of the soul's separation 

871 Matt. 6: 10, 33. Mark 12: 34. Luke 11: 2; 12: 31; 17: 21-24. 
206 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

from matter. 672 These truths,, which to us are purely ab- 
stract, were living realities to Jesus. Everything in his 
mind was concrete and substantial. Jesus was the man of 
all men who most thoroughly believed in the reality of the 
ideal. 

Even though accepting the Utopias of his time and his 
race, Jesus was thus able to make lofty truths of them, 
thanks to fruitful misconceptions of their import. His 
kingdom of God was doubtless the apocalypse, which was 
soon to be unfolded in the heavens. But besides this, and 
probably above all, it was the soul's kingdom, founded on 
freedom, and on the feeling of sonship which the good 
man knows in his rest on the bosom of his Father. It was 
a pure religion without forms, without temple, and without 
priest; it was the moral judgment of the world delegated 
to the conscience of the righteous man and to the arm of 
the people. This is what was destined to live; this is what 
has lived. When, at the close of a century of vain expecta- 
tion, the materialistic hope of an approaching end of the 
world was worn out, the true kingdom of God came to 
light. Convenient explanations threw a veil over the ma- 
terial kingdom, which made no haste to appear. Men of 
obsinate mind, who, like Papias, adhered to the literal 
truth of the words of Jesus, were considered narrow- 
minded and behind the age. 673 The Apocalypse of John, 
the first canonical book of the New Testament, 674 being too 
formally attached to the idea of an immediate catastrophe, 
became of secondary importance, was regarded as unintel- 
ligible, tortured in a thousand ways, and almost rej ected ; 675 

872 See especially Mark 12: 34. 

673 Iren. Adv. hcer., 5, 33: 3, 4; Euseb. Hist, eccl. 3: 39. 

674 Justin, Try ph., 81. 

875 In the Greek church it was long denied a place in the canon: Euseb. 
Hist. eccl. 3: 25, 28, 39, and 7: 25; Cyril of Jerusalem, Catech., 4: 33, 36, 
and 15: 18; Greg. Nazianzen, Carm. p. 261, 1104 (ed. of Caillan) ; Council 

207 



LIFE OF JESUS 

at least its accomplishment was adjourned to an indefinite 
future. Some poor benighted beings, who, in a fully en- 
lightened age, still clung to the hopes of the first disciples, 
became heretics (Ebionites, Millenarians), lost in the shal- 
lows of Christianity. Mankind had passed on to another 
kingdom of God. The element of truth contained in the 
thought of Jesus had prevailed over the chimera which ob- 
scured it. 

Let us not, however, despise this chimera, which has 
been the coarse rind of the sacred fruit on which we live. 
This fantastic kingdom of heaven, this endless pursuit after 
a city of God, which has been the constant and absorbing 
idea of Christianity during its long career, has been the 
principle of that great instinct of futurity which has filled 
the souls of all reformers, persistent believers in the 
Apocalypse, from Joachim of Flora, down to the Protestant 
sectary of our own days. This impotent effort to found 
a perfect state of society has been the source of the ex- 
traordinary tension which has always made the true 
Christian an athlete at strife with his own epoch. The 
idea of the " kingdom of God," and the Apocalypse, which 
forms its complete image, are thus, in a sense, the loftiest 
and most poetic expression of human progress. But of 
necessity they also gave rise to great errors. The end of 
the world, hanging as a constant menace over mankind, 
hampered all secular development by the periodical panics 
which it caused during centuries. 676 Society, being no 

of Laodicea, Canon 60; Nicephorus, Chronogr., p. 419 (Paris, 1652, list 
at the end). The Armenian Church also makes the book of doubtful 
canonicity: Sarkis Schnorhali, quoted in Exercice de la jo hret., with the 
approval of the Catholicos Nerses: Moscow, 1850 (in Armenian). Finally, 
the Apocalypse is wanting in the old Peshito version [the Syriac "vul- 
gate," of the third and fourth century]. 

676 See, for example, the prologue of Gregory of Tours to his "Ecclesi- 
astical History of the Franks." 

208 



THE KINGDOM OF GOD 

longer certain of its own existence, contracted therefrom 
a kind of trepidation and those habits of servile humility 
which rendered the Middle Ages so inferior both to ancient 
and modern times. 

A profound change also took place in the manner of re- 
garding the coming of Christ. When it was first announced 
to mankind that the end of its planet was at hand, like the 
infant which welcomes death with a smile, it had the in- 
tensest increase of joy that it has ever felt. But in growing 
old the world became attached to life. The day of grace, 
so long awaited by the simple souls of Galilee, became to 
the iron mediaeval ages a day of wrath: Dies irce, dies ilia! 
But, in the very midst of barbarism, the idea of the king- 
dom of God continued to be fruitful. Some of the legal 
documents of the first half of the Middle Ages beginning 
with the formula, " On the coming of the evening of the 
world . . . ," are charters of enfranchisement. In spite 
of the feudal Church, of sects, and of religious orders, holy 
men and women continued to protest in the name of the 
Gospel against the world's iniquity. Even in our own days, 
troublous days in which Jesus has no truer followers than 
those who seem to deny him, the dreams of an ideal organi- 
sation of society, which have so much analogy to the aspira- 
tions of the primitive Christian sects, are in one sense noth- 
ing but the blossoming of the same idea, one of the branches 
of that mighty tree in which germinates all thought of 
futurity, of which the " kingdom of God " will be eternally 
the root and the stem. On this phrase all the social revolu- 
tions of humanity will be grafted. But, tainted by a gross 
materialism, and aspiring to the impossible — that is to say, 
to the foundation of universal happiness upon political and 
economic measures, the socialistic endeavours of our time 
will remain unfruitful, until they take as their guiding 
principle the true spirit of Jesus, by which I mean absolute 
209 



LIFE OF JESUS 

idealism — the principle that to possess the world we must 
renounce it. 

The phrase, " kingdom of God," also expresses with 
singular felicity the want felt by the soul of a supple- 
mentary destiny, of a compensation for actual life. Those 
who cannot bring themselves to conceive of man as being 
a compound of two substances, and regard the deistic 
dogma of the immortality of the soul as being in contra- 
diction with physiology, love to rest in the hope of a final 
reparation, which, under some unknown form, shall satisfy 
the needs of the heart of man. Who knows if the last 
term of progress after millions of ages may not evoke the 
absolute conscience of the universe, and in that conscience 
the awakening of all that has ever lived? The slumber of 
a million of years is no longer than the slumber of an hour. 
St. Paul, on this hypothesis, may have been right in saying, 
" In the twinkling of an eye! (1 Cor. 15: 52.) It is cer- 
tain that the moral and virtuous part of humanity will have 
its reward, that one day the ideas of the poor and honest 
man will judge the world, and that on that day the ideal 
figure of Jesus will bring confusion to the frivolous man 
who has not believed in virtue, and to the selfish man who 
has been unable to attain to it. The favourite phrase of 
Jesus remains therefore full of an undying beauty. A 
kind of exalted divination seems to have maintained it in 
a vague sublimity simultaneously embracing diverse orders 
of truth. 



210 



CHAPTER XVIII 

The Institutions of Jesus 

That Jesus was never wholly absorbed in his apocalyptic 
ideas is proved moreover by the fact that, at the very time 
they -were most in his thoughts, he laid with rare fore- 
thought the foundations of a church that was destined to 
endure. It is scarcely possible to doubt that he himself 
chose from among his disciples those who received the 
special title of the " apostles," or the " twelve," since, on 
the day after his death, they are to be found forming a 
distinct body, and filling up by election the vacancies that 
happen in their midst. 677 They were the two sons of Jonas, 
the two sons of Zebedee, James son of Alpheus, Philip, 
Nathanael Bar-Tolmai, Thomas, Matthew, Simon Zelotes, 
Thaddeus or Lebbaeus, and Judas of Kerioth. 678 It is 
probable that the idea of the twelve tribes of Israel in- 
fluenced the choice of this number. 679 The " twelve," at 
all events, formed a group of privileged disciples, among 
whom Peter maintained a position of fraternal priority; 68 ° 
and to them Jesus entrusted the propagation of his work. 
There was nothing, however, resembling a regularly organ- 
ised sacerdotal body. The lists of the " twelve," which 
have been preserved, contain many uncertainties and con- 
tradictions; two or three of those who appear in them 

677 Matt. 4: 1-4; Mark 3: 13-19; Luke 6: 13; John 6: 70; 13: 18; 
15: 16; Acts 1: 13-26; 1 Cor. 15: 5; Gal. 1: 10; Rev. 21: 12. 

678 Besides the above, see Papias in Euseb. Hist. eccl. 3: 39. 
879 Matt. 19: 28; Luke 22: 30. 

680 Acts 1: 15; 2: 14; 5: 2, 3, 29; 8: 19; 15: 7. Gal. 1: 18. 

211 



LIFE OF JESUS 

have remained completely obscure. At least two, Peter and 
Philip, were married and had children. 681 

To the twelve — Jesus evidently told secrets which he for- 
bade them to communicate to the world. 682 It seems as 
though his plan at times was to surround himself with a 
certain degree of mystery, to postpone the most important 
testimony concerning himself until after his death, and to 
reveal himself completely only to his disciples, confiding to 
them the care of showing him forth afterwards to the 
world. 683 " What I tell you in the darkness, speak ye in 
the light; and what ye hear in the ear, proclaim upon the 
housetops " (Matt. 10: 27). This spared him the necessity 
of too precise statements and created a kind of medium 
between him and public opinion. It is clear that certain 
teachings were reserved for the apostles alone, and that 
he explained many parables to them, the meaning of which 
to the multitude was ambiguous. 684 An enigmatical form 
and a certain strange fashion of associating ideas were 
usual in the teachings of the doctors, as may be seen in the 
sentences of the Pirke Aboth. To his intimate friends 
Jesus explained whatever was peculiar in his apothegms 
or in his apologues, and for them separated his meaning 
from the wealth of illustration which sometimes made it 
obscure. 685 Many of these explanations appear to have 
been carefully preserved. 686 

During the lifetime of Jesus the apostles preached, 687 

681 Concerning Peter, see ante p. 187; concerning Philip, see the testi- 
monies of Papias, Polycrates, and Clement of Alexandria in Euseb. Hist, 
eccl. 3: 30, 31, 39; 5: 24. 

682 Matt. 16: 20; 17: 9. Mark 8: 30; 9: 8. 

683 Matt. 10: 26, 27; 16: 20. Mark 4: 21, 22; 8: 30. Luke 8: 17; 
9: 21; 12: 2, 3. John 14: 22. Epistle of Barnabas, 5. 

684 Matt. 13: 10-13, 34, 35; Mark 4: 10-12, 33, 34; Luke 8: 9, 10, 
and 12: 41. 

685 Matt. 16: 6-12; Mark 7: 17-23. 

686 Matt. 13: 34-44; Mark 7: 18-23. 687 Luke 9: 6. 

212 



INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS 

but without ever going far from him. 688 Their preaching, 
moreover, was confined to the announcement of the speedy- 
coming of the kingdom of God. They went from town to 
town, receiving hospitality, or rather taking it themselves, 
according to the custom of the land. In the East the 
guest has much authority; he is superior to the master of 
the house, who places the fullest confidence in him. Fire- 
side preaching like this is admirably adapted for spreading 
new doctrines. The hidden treasure is communicated, and 
thus payment is given for what has been received; polite- 
ness and good feeling lend their aid; the household is 
touched and converted. Without the factor of Eastern 
hospitality, an explanation of the propagation of Christian- 
ity would be impossible. Jesus, who greatly adhered to 
good old customs, encouraged his disciples to make no 
scruple of profiting by this ancient public right, probably 
abolished already in the great towns where there were 
inns. 689 " The labourer," said he, " is worthy of his food " 
(Matt. 10: 10). Once installed in any man's house, they 
were to remain there, eating and drinking what was offered 
to them, so long as their mission lasted. 690 

Jesus desired that, following his example, the messengers 
of the glad tidings should make their preaching pleasant 
by kindly and courteous manners. He directed that, on 
entering a house, they should give the salaam or greeting. 
Some hesitated, the salaam being then, as now in the East, 
a sign of religious communion, which is not hazarded with 
people of dubious faith. 691 " Fear nothing," said Jesus ; 
" if no one in the house is worthy of your salute, it will 
return unto you." 692 Sometimes indeed the apostles of the 

688 Luke 10: 11. 

689 The Greek word iravfioKetov has been adopted in all tongues of the 
East as signifying an inn. 

690 Mark6:10. 

691 2 John 10, 11. 692 Matt. 10: 11-13; Luke 10: 5-7. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

kingdom of God were ill received, and came to complain 
to Jesus, who generally sought to soothe them. Some of 
them, convinced of the omnipotence of their Master, were 
hurt at this forbearance. The sons of Zebedee wished him 
to call down fire from heaven upon towns that were in- 
hospitable. 693 Jesus received their outbursts with his 
subtle irony, and made them cease by saying: " The Son 
of man came not to destroy men's lives, but to save them " 
(Luke 9:56). 

He sought in every way to lay down as a principle that 
his apostles were as himself. 694 It was believed that he had 
endowed them with his own marvellous virtues. They cast 
out demons, prophesied, and formed a school of renowned 
exorcists, 695 although certain cases were beyond their 
powers. 696 They also wrought cures, either by the laying 
on of hands, or by anointing with oil, 697 one of the funda- 
mental practices of oriental medicine. Lastly, like the 
Psylli, 698 they could handle serpents and drink deadly 
potions with impunity. 699 The farther we get from Jesus, 
the more offensive this theurgy becomes. But there is no 
doubt that it was generally used in the primitive church, 
and that it greatly attracted the attention of the world 
around. 700 Charlatans, as might be expected, took advan- 
tage of this movement of popular credulity. Even in the 
lifetime of Jesus, several, although not his disciples, cast 
out devils in his name. The real disciples were much an- 

693 Luke 9: 52-56. 

694 Matt. 10: 40-42; 25: 35-40. Mark 9: 40. Luke 10: 16. John 
13:20. 

695 Matt. 7: 22; 10: 1. Mark 3: 15; 6: 13. Luke 10: 17. 
698 Matt. 17: 18, 19. 

697 Mark 6: 13; 16: 18. James 5: 14. 

698 Herodotus, 14: 173. 

699 Mark 16: 18; Luke 10: 19. 
700 Markl6:20. 

214 



INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS 

noyed at this, and sought to prevent them. Jesus, who 
regarded it as homage paid to his renown, was not very 
severe towards them. It must be observed, moreover, that 
the exercise of these supernatural powers had, if one can 
say so, become a trade. Carrying the logic of absurdity 
to extremes, certain men cast out devils by Beelzebub, the 
prince of devils. 701 They imagined that this sovereign lord 
of the infernal regions must have full authority over his 
subordinates, and that, in acting through him, they were 
certain to put the intruding spirit to flight. 702 Some even 
sought to purchase from the disciples of Jesus the secret 
of the miraculous powers which had been conferred upon 
them. 703 

From this time the germ of a church began to show 
itself. This fertile idea of the power of men bound to- 
gether in union (ecclesia) seems to have been derived from 
Jesus. Full of his purely idealistic doctrine that it is union 
by love that brings souls together, he declared that when- 
ever a few men should gather together in his name, he 
would be in the midst of them. To the church he confided 
the right to bind and to unbind (that is to say, to make cer- 
tain things lawful or unlawful), to remit sins, to reprove, 
to give warning with authority, and to pray with the cer- 
tainty of being favourably heard. 704 It is possible that 
many of these words may have been attributed to the Mas- 
ter, so as to give a basis for the collective authority, the 
substitution of which for that of Jesus was afterwards 
sought. At all events, it was only after his death that 
particular churches were set up, and even this first consti- 
tution was made purely and simply on the model of the 
synagogue. Many people who had loved Jesus much, and 

701 An ancient Philistine divinity, regarded by the Jews as a demon. 

702 Matt. 12: 24-29. 

703 Acts 8: 18-24. 704 Matt. 18: 18-20; John 20: 23. 

215 



LIFE OF JESUS 

had founded great hopes upon him, such as Joseph of 
Arimathea, Mary Magdalene, and Nicodemus, apparently 
did not join these churches, but clung to the tender or re- 
spectful memory of him which they had cherished. 

In the teaching of Jesus, morever, there is no trace of an 
applied ethics or of a canonical law, however slightly de- 
fined. Once only, on the question of marriage, he spoke 
decidedly and forbade divorce. 705 Neither was there any 
theology or creed. There were views respecting the Father, 
the Son, and the Spirit, 706 from which the Trinity and the 
Incarnation were afterwards deduced, but they were then 
only in a state of indeterminate imagery. The later books 
of the Jewish canon already recognised the Holy Spirit, a 
sort of divine hypostasis, sometimes identified with Wisdom 
or the Word. 707 Jesus insisted on this point, 708 and pro- 
fessed to give his disciples a baptism by fire and the 
spirit, 709 far preferable to that of John. To Jesus this Holy 
Spirit was identical with the breath for ever emanating 
from God the Father. 710 Then subtleties began to appear 
in the doctrine. It was held that Jesus had promised his 
disciples to send, as a substitute after his death, a Spirit 
who should teach them all things and bear witness to the 
truths which he himself had promulgated. 711 One day the 
apostles believed that they had received the baptism of this 
Spirit under the form of a mighty wind and tongues of 
fire. 712 To designate the Spirit, use was made of the word 

705 Matt. 19: 3—11 

706 Matt. 28: 19 (comp. 3: 16, 17); John 15; 26. 

707 Wisdom 1:7; 7: 7; 9: 17; 18:1. Eccles. 1: 9; 15: 5; 24: 27; 39: 8. 
Judith 16: 17. 

708 Matt. 10: 20; Luke 12: 12, and 24: 49; John 14: 26, and 15: 26. 

709 Matt. 3: 11; Mark 1: 8; Luke 3: 16; John 1: 26, and 3: 5; Acts 
1:5, 8, and 10:47. 

710 Matt. 10: 20; Mark 13: 11; Luke 12: 12, and 21: 15. 

711 John 15: 26; 16: 13, 16. Comp. Luke 24: 49; Acts 1: 8. 

712 Acts 2: 1-4; 11: 15; 19: 6. Comp. John 7: 39. 

216 



INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS 

Peraklit borrowed by Syro-Chaldaic from the Greek 
TrapdfcKrjTOS, which appears to have had in this case the 
sense of " advocate/' or " counsellor," 713 or else that of 
" interpreter of heavenly truths," and " teacher charged 
with the revelation to men of mysteries still veiled." 714 It 
is very doubtful whether Jesus employed the word. This 
was an application of the process which Jewish and 
Christian theologies were to follow during centuries, and 
which was to produce a whole series of divine assessors, 
the Metathronos, the Synadelphe or Sandalphon, and all 
the personifications of the Cabbala. But in Judaism these 
creations were to remain free personal speculations, whilst 
in Christianity, from the fourth century onwards, they 
were to form the very essence of orthodoxy and universal 
doctrine. 

It is unnecessary to point out how remote from the ideas 
of Jesus was the idea of a religious book, containing a 
code and articles of faith. Not only did he not write, but 
it was contrary to the spirit of the infant sect to produce 
sacred books. Its members believed themselves on the eve 
of the great final catastrophe. The Messiah came to put 
his seal upon the Law and the Prophets, not to promulgate 
new Scriptures. And so, with the exception of the 
Apocalypse, which in one sense was the only revealed book 
of primitive Christianity, 715 all the other writings of the 
apostolic age were works occasioned by existing circum- 
stances, making no pretensions to furnish a complete dog- 
matic whole. The Gospels had at first an entirely personal 
character, and possessed much less authority than tradi- 
tion. 716 

713 John 14: 16; 1 John 2: 1. To the Advocate (irapdK\7jTos) was 
opposed the Accuser (fcar-fiyopos) . 

714 John 14: 26; 15: 26; 16: 7-11. The word is peculiar to the fourth 
Gospel and to Philo (De mundi opificio, 6). 

715 Justin, Tryph., 81. 716 Papias, in Eusebius, Hist. eccl. 3: 39. 

217 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Had the sect, however, no sacrament, no rite, no rallying 
sign? It had one which all traditions ascribe to Jesus. 
One of the favourite ideas of the Master was that he was 
the new Bread of Life, bread far better than manna, on 
which mankind was to live. In speaking of this idea, the 
germ of the Eucharist, he at times gave it a singularly 
concrete form. On one occasion especially, in the syna- 
gogue of Capernaum, he allowed himself very free expres- 
sion which cost him several of his disciples. " Verily, 
verily, I say unto you, It was not Moses that gave you the 
bread out of heaven; but my Father giveth you the true 
bread out of heaven." 717 And he added, " I am the bread 
of life: he that cometh to me shall not hunger, and he that 
believeth on me shall never thirst." 718 

These words excited great murmuring. " The Jews 
therefore murmured concerning him because he said, I 
am the bread which came down out of heaven. And 
they said, Is not this Jesus the son of Joseph, whose father 
and mother we know? how doth he now say, I am come 
down out of heaven? " But Jesus, insisting with still more 
force, said, " I am the bread of life; your fathers did eat 
the manna in the wilderness and they died. This is the 
bread which cometh down out of heaven, that a man may 
eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came 
down out of heaven; if any man eat of this bread, he shall 
live for ever; yea, and the bread which I will give is my 
flesh for the life of the world" (John 6: 48-51 ). 719 The 
offence was now at its height: " How can this man give us 
his flesh to eat? " Jesus, going yet further, said, " Verily, 

717 John 6: 32-35. 

718 A similar turn of expression, leading to a like misunderstanding, is 
found in John 4: 10-14. 

719 All this is too strongly stamped with the peculiar style of the 
fourth Gospel to allow us to think it the genuine language of Jesus. 
Still, the incident is not to be regarded as wholly without historic reality. 

218 



INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS 

verily, I say unto you, Except ye eat the flesh of the Son 
of man, and drink his bloody ye have not life in you. He 
that eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood, hath eternal 
life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh 
is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that 
eateth my flesh and drinketh my blood dwelleth in me, and 
I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because 
of the Father: so he that eateth me, also he shall live be- 
cause of me. This is the bread which came down out of 
heaven: not as the fathers did eat, and died: he that eateth 
this bread shall live for ever." Several of his disciples 
were offended at such obstinacy in paradox, and ceased to 
follow him. Jesus did not retract; he only added: " It is 
the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing; the 
words that I have spoken unto you, are spirit, and are life." 
The twelve remained faithful, in spite of his strange 
preaching. To Cephas in particular it gave an oppor- 
tunity of showing his absolute devotion, and of proclaiming 
once more, " Thou art that Christ, the Son of the living 
God." 

It is probable that from that time some custom derived 
from the discourse, so ill received by the people of Caper- 
naum, was established in the common repasts of the sect. 
But on this subject apostolic traditions diverge very greatly, 
and are probably incomplete by design. The synoptic 
Gospels, the narratives of which are confirmed by St. Paul, 
suppose a unique sacramental act to have served as the 
origin of the mysterious rite, and identify it with " the 
Last Supper." 720 The fourth Gospel, which records for us 
the incident at the synagogue of Capernaum, does not speak 
of such an act, although it describes the Last Supper at 
considerable length. Elsewhere we see Jesus recognised 

720 Matt. 26: 26-29; Mark 14: 22-25; Luke 22: 14-20; 1 Cor. 11: 
219 



LIFE OF JESUS 

in the breaking of bread, 721 as though to those who sought 
his company this were one of his most characteristic acts. 
When he was dead, the form under which he appeared to 
the pious memory of his disciples was that of the ruler of a 
mysterious banquet, taking the bread, blessing it, breaking 
it, and presenting it to those present. 722 It is probable that 
this was one of his habits, and that at such moments he 
was particularly loving and tender. One material circum- 
stance, the presence of fish on the table (a striking indi- 
cation which proves that the rite originated on the shore of 
Lake Tiberias), 723 was itself almost sacramental, and be- 
came a necessary part of current conceptions of the sacred 
feast. 724 

These repasts were amongst the sweetest moments of the 
infant community. On such occasions they all gathered 
together; the Master spoke to each one, and kept up a 
conversation full of charm and gaiety. Jesus loved these 
meetings, and was pleased to see his spiritual family thus 
grouped around him. 725 By Jewish custom the master of the 
house, at the beginning of the meal, took the bread, blessed 
it with a brief invocation, broke it and then offered it to 
each of those at the board. The wine was blessed in like 

721 Luke 24: 30, 35. 

722 Luke loc. cit.; John 21: 13; Gospel of Hebrews in Jerome, De viris 
illustribus, 2. 

723 Comp. Matt. 7: 10; 14: 17-21; 15: 34-38. Also Mark 6: 38-44; 
Luke 9: 13-17; 11: 11, and 24: 42; John 6: 9-13 and 21: 9-13. The 
basin of Lake Tiberias is the only part of Palestine where fish makes a 
considerable portion of the diet. 

724 John 21 : 13; Luke 24: 42, 43. Compare the oldest representations 
of the Eucharist as reported or corrected by Rossi in his dissertation 
on the IX0T2 ("fish:" Dom Pitra's Spicilegium Solesmense, 3: 568 
et seq.; comp. Rossi, Bull, di arch, crist., 3d year, pp. 44, 73 et seq.), It 
is true that small fish were, like bread, an indispensable part of every 
meal (see the inscription of Lanuvium, 2d col. 16, 17). The acrostic 
contained in the word IX0T5 [' 1r)<rovs Xpitrrbs ®eov Tibs 2a>r^p] was no 
doubt allied with an older tradition on the importance of the fish in 
the primitive meal of the disciples. 72B Luke 22: 15. 

220 



INSTITUTIONS OF JESUS 

manner. 726 Among the Essenes and the Therapeutae the 
sacred feast had already taken the ritual importance after- 
wards given to the Christian eucharist. 727 Eating of the 
same bread was considered as a kind of communion, a 
reciprocal bond. 728 On this point the Master used ex- 
tremely strong terms, which were afterwards taken in an 
unduly literal sense. Jesus was at once extremely idealis- 
tic in his conceptions, and extremely materialistic in his ex- 
pression of them. Desiring to express the thought that 
the believer only lives by him, that he was wholly, body, 
blood, and soul, the life of the truly faithful, he said to 
his disciples, " I am your food," — a phrase which, turned 
into figurative style, became, " My flesh is your bread, my 
blood your drink." And then the modes of speech em- 
ployed by Jesus, which were always strongly subjective, 
carried him still further. At table, pointing to the food, 
he said, " I am here " — holding the bread — " this is my 
body;" and of the wine, "This is my blood," — all man- 
ners of speech equivalent to " I am your food." 

This mysterious rite acquired great importance in the 
lifetime of Jesus. It was probably established some little 
time before the last journey to Jerusalem, and it resulted 
from a general doctrine much more than from a determinate 
act. After the death of Jesus, it became the great symbol 
of Christian communion, 729 and it was with the most solemn 
moment of the Saviour's life that its origin was connected. 
Christians wished to see, in the consecration of bread and 
wine, a memory of farewell which Jesus, at the moment of 
passing from life, had left to his disciples. 730 They found 

726 Matt. 14:19; Luke 24: 30; Acts 27: 35; Babylonian Talmud, 
Berakoth, 37 b. This is still the Jewish custom. 

727 Philo, De vita contempt, 6-11; Josephus, Wars, 2, 8: 7. 

728 Acts 2: 46; 20: 7, 11. 1 Cor. 10: 16-18. 

729 Acts 2: 42 46. 

730 Luke 22: 19; 1 Cor. 11: 20-26; Justin, Tryph., 41, 70; ApoL, 1: 66. 

221 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Jesus himself in this sacrament. 731 The wholly spiritual 
conception of the presence of souls, which was one of the 
Master's most familiar ideas, and made him say, for ex- 
ample, that he was, in his own person, with his disciples 
when they gathered together in his name, 732 made this 
easily admissible. Jesus, as we have already said, 733 had 
never any definite notions of what constitutes individuality. 
At the height of exaltation to which he had attained, the 
ideal surpassed all else so far, that the body counted for 
nothing. We are one when we love one another, when we 
live one for another; thus it was that he and his disciples 
were one. 734 His disciples adopted the same phraseology. 735 
Those who for years had lived with him had always seen 
him take the bread and the cup " in his holy and venerable 
hands," 736 and thus offer himself to them. It was he whom 
they ate and drank; he became the true Passover, the an- 
cient one having been revoked by his blood. It is impossi- 
ble to translate into our essentially determinate language, 
in which a rigid distinction between the literal and the 
metaphorical must always be observed, habits of style the 
essence of which is the attribution of full reality to the meta- 
phor, or rather to the idea the metaphor represents. 

731 Cor. 10: 16. 

732 Matt. 18:20. 

733 See ante, p. 258. 

734 John, chap. 12 throughout. 

735 Ephes. 3:17. 

736 "Words of a very ancient canon of the Greek and Latin Mass. 



CHAPTER XIX 

Growing Enthusiasm and Exaltation 

It is clear that a religious society of this nature, founded 
solely on expectation of the kingdom of God, must be in 
itself very incomplete. The first Christian generation lived 
almost entirely on anticipations and dreams. On the eve 
of beholding the world come to an end, they regarded as 
useless all that served only to prolong it. Fondness for 
property was looked on as a sin. 737 All that attaches man 
to earth, all that draws him away from heaven, was to be 
shunned. Although several of the disciples were married, 
it would seem that no marriages were contracted after en- 
trance into the sect. 738 Celibacy was greatly preferred. 739 
At one moment the Master apparently approved of those 
who mutilated themselves in prospect of the kingdom of 
God. 740 In this he was consistent with his principle, " If 
thy hand or thy foot causeth thee to stumble, cut it off, and 
cast it from thee: it is good for thee to enter into life 
maimed or halt rather than having two hands or two feet to 
be cast into the eternal fire. And if thine eye causeth thee 
to stumble, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is good 
for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having 
two eyes to be cast into the hell of fire." 741 Cessation from 
generation was often regarded as the sign and condition 
of the kingdom of God. 742 

737 Matt. 19: 21; Luke 14: 33; Acts 4: 32-35, and 5: 1-11. 

738 Matt. 19: 10-12; Luke 18: 29, 30. 

739 This is the constant teaching of Paul: comp. Rev. 14: 4. 

740 Matt. 19: 12. 

741 Matt. 18: 8, 9: comp. Babylonian Talmud, Niddah, 13 b. 

742 Matt. 22: 30; Mark 12: 25; Luke 20: 35; Ebionite Gospel of the 
Egyptians, in Clem. Alex. Strmn., 3: 9, 13; Clem. Rom. Ep. 2: 12. 

223 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Never, it is clear, would this primitive church have 
formed a lasting society but for the great variety of seeds 
sown by Jesus in his teaching. More than a century was 
necessary for the true Christian church — that which has 
converted the world — to disentangle itself from this little 
sect of " latter-day saints," and become a framework ap- 
plicable to human society as a whole. The same thing oc- 
curred indeed in the case of Buddhism, which at first was 
founded only for monks. The same thing would have hap- 
pened in the order of St. Francis had that order succeeded 
in its design of becoming the rule of the whole of human 
society. Essentially Utopian in their origin, owing their 
success to their exaggerations, the great systems we have 
just mentioned have only conquered the world by being 
profoundly modified and by abandoning their excesses. 
Jesus did not go beyond this first and entirely monachal 
period, with its belief that the impossible can be attempted 
with impunity. He made no concession to necessity. He 
boldly preached war upon nature and total severance from 
ties of blood. " Verily I say unto you," he said, " there 
is no man that hath left house, or wife, or brethren, or 
parents, or children, for the kingdom of God's sake, who 
shall not receive manifold more in this time, and in the 
world to come eternal life." 743 

The instructions which Jesus is said to have given his 
disciples breathe the same exaltation. 744 He who was so 
tolerant to the outside world, he who was sometimes con- 
tented with half adhesions, exercised extreme rigour towards 
his own followers. He would have no " all buts." His 
disciples might be described as an order governed by the 
austerest rules. Faithful to his idea that the cares of 

743 Luke 18: 29, 30. 

744 Matt. 10 (throughout); 24: 9. Mark 6: 8-11; 9: 40; 13: 9-13. 
Luke 9: 3-5; 10: 1-7; 12: 4-12; 21: 17. John 15: 18-21; 17: 14. 

224 



ENTHUSIASM AND EXALTATION 

life trouble man and abase him, Jesus demanded of his 
associates complete severance from earth and perfect de- 
votion to his work. They were to carry with them neither 
money nor provisions for the way, not even a scrip or change 
of raiment. They had to practise absolute poverty, to live 
on alms and hospitality. " Freely ye received, freely 
give," 745 he said in his beautiful language. If arrested 
and arraigned before judges, they were not to prepare their 
defence; the heaventy advocate would inspire them with 
what they were to say. The Father would send his Spirit 
from on high upon them, and this Spirit would become the 
principle of all their acts, the director of their thoughts, 
their guide through the whole world. 746 If driven from any 
town, they were to shake the dust from their shoes, at all 
times giving testimony of the proximity of the kingdom 
of God, that none might plead ignorance. " Ye shall not 
have gone through the cities of Israel," he added, " till the 
Son of man be come " (Matt. 10: 23). 

A strange ardour breathes through all these discourses, 
which in part may be the creation of his disciples' enthu- 
siasm ; 747 but, even in that case, they came indirectly from 
Jesus himself, for it was he who had inspired the enthusi- 
asm. To those who desired to follow him he predicted 
severe persecutions and the hatred of mankind. He sent 
them forth as lambs into the midst of wolves. They would 
be scourged in the synagogues and dragged to prison. 
Brother would deliver up brother, and father, son. When 
they were persecuted in one country, they were to flee 
into another. " A disciple," said he, " is not above his 
master, nor a servant above his lord. ... Be not afraid of 
them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the 

745 Matt. 10: 8: comp. Midrash Ialkout, Deuteron., § 824. 

746 Matt. 10: 20. John 14: 16, 17, 25-27; 16: 7, 13. 

747 The expressions in Matt. 10: 38, and 16: 24, in Mark 8: 34, and 
Luke 14: 27, must have been conceived after the death of Jesus. 

225 



LIFE OF JESUS 

soul. . . . Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and 
one of them shall not fall on the ground without your 
Father; but the very hairs of your head are all numbered. 
Fear not therefore; ye are of more value than many spar- 
rows." 748 " Every one therefore," he continued, " who 
shall confess me before men, him will I confess also before 
my Father which is in heaven. But whosoever shall deny 
me before men, him will I also deny before my Father 
which is in Heaven." 749 

In his passionate severity he went so far as to abolish 
all natural feeling. His exactions had no longer any 
bounds. Despising the healthy limits of man's nature, he 
demanded that he should exist only for him, that he should 
love him alone. "If any man cometh unto me," he said, 
" and hateth not his own father, and mother, and wife, and 
children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life 
also, he cannot be my disciple." 750 " So therefore whoso- 
ever he be of you that renounceth not all that he hath, he 
cannot be my disciple." 751 At such moments there was 
something strange and more than human in his words; 
they were as a fire, consuming life at its very root, and 
reducing all to a frightful wilderness. The harsh and 
gloomy feeling of disgust for the world and of excessive 
self-abnegation which characterises Christian perfection, 
was founded, not by the subtle and cheerful moralist of 
earlier days, but by the sombre giant whom a kind of 
mighty presentiment was withdrawing more and more from 
the pale of humanity. It might be said that, in these mo- 
ments of warfare with the heart's most legitimate cravings, 
Jesus had forgotten the pleasure of living, of loving, of 

748 Matt. 10: 24-31; Luke 12: 4-7. 

749 Matt. 10: 32, 33; Mark 8: 38; Luke 9: 26, and 12: 8, 9. 

750 Luke 14: 26. Allowance should be made for the vein of exag- 
geration in Luke. 

751 Luke 14:33. 

226 



ENTHUSIASM AND EXALTATION 

seeing, and of feeling. Passing still further beyond all 
limits, he even said, "If any man would come after me, 
let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy 
of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me 
is not worthy of me. For whosoever would save his life 
shall lose it, but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, 
the same shall save it. For what is a man profited, if he 
shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? " 752 

Two anecdotes of a kind that cannot be accepted as his- 
torical, but which, although exaggerations, were intended 
to represent a characteristic feature, aptly illustrate this 
defiance thrown down to nature. He said to one man, " Fol- 
low me ! " " But he said, Lord, suffer me first to go and 
bury my father." To this Jesus answered, " Leave the 
dead to bury their own dead: but go thou and publish 
abroad the kingdom of God. And another also said, I will 
follow thee, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to 
them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No 
man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, 
is fit for the kingdom of God." 753 Extraordinary self- 
confidence, and, at times, accents of singular sweetness, 
reversing all our ideas of him, caused these exaggerations 
to be easily received. " Come unto me," he cried, " all ye 
that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. 
Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek 
and lowly in heart; and ye shall find rest unto your souls. 
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light." 754 

A great danger necessarily threatened the future of this 
exalted morality, thus expressed in hyperbolical language 

752 Matt. 10: 37-39; 16: 24-26. Mark 8: 34-37. Luke 9: 23-25; 
14 : 26, 27 ; 17 : 33. John 12 : 25. 

753 Matt. 8: 21, 22. Luke 9: 56-62. 

754 Matt. 11: 28-30. 

227 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and with terrible energy. By severing man from earth, the 
ties of life were riven asunder. The Christian was to be 
praised for being a bad son or a bad patriot, if it were for 
Christ that he resisted his father and fought against his 
country. The ancient city, the republic, mother of her 
citizens, the state, and the common law were thus considered 
hostile to the kingdom of God; a fatal germ of theocracy 
was implanted in the world. 

From this point another consequence can be perceived. 
A morality such as this, created for a temporary crisis, 
must seem impossible when brought into a peaceful coun- 
try, a community assured of its own duration. Thus the 
Gospel was destined to become for Christians a Utopia 
which few would care to realise. For the great majority 
these terrible maxims would rest in profound oblivion, an 
oblivion encouraged by the clergy itself; the Gospel man 
would be a dangerous man. The most selfish, proud, 
harsh, and materialistic of all human beings — a Louis XIV. 
for instance — would find priests to persuade him, in spite 
of the Gospel, that he was a Christian. But, on the other 
hand, there were always to be foimd holy men who took 
the sublime paradoxes of Jesus literally. Perfection being 
set beyond ordinary social conditions, and a complete 
Gospel life being only possible outside the world, the 
principle of asceticism and monasticism was established. 
Christian societies were destined to have two moral codes 
— the one moderately heroic for ordinary men, the other 
excessively exalted for the perfect man; and the perfect 
man would be a monk, subjected to rules which professed 
to realise the Gospel ideal. It is obvious that this ideal, 
were it only on account of its enforced celibacy and poverty, 
could not become a law for all. In one sense the monk 
would be thus the only true Christian. Ordinary common 
sense has a repulsion from such excesses, taking as its 
228 



ENTHUSIASM AND EXALTATION 

standpoint that desire for the impossible is a mark of 
weakness and error. But ordinary common sense is a 
bad judge where great matters are in question. To obtain 
a little from humanity, we must ask much. The immense 
moral progress due to the Gospel is the result of its ex- 
aggerations. It is thus that, like Stoicism but with infinitely 
greater fulness, it has been a living argument for man's 
divine powers, a monument raised to the potency of the 
will. 

It may easily be imagined that to Jesus, at this period 
of his life, all that was not of the kingdom of God had 
absolutely faded away. He was, if one can say so, entirely 
outside nature; family, friendship, country, had no longer 
any meaning for him. There can be no doubt that from 
this moment he had sealed his fate. Sometimes one is 
tempted to believe that, seeing in his own death a means 
of founding his kingdom, he deliberately determined to 
allow himself to be slain. 755 At other times, although such 
a thought only latterly became a doctrine, death presented 
itself to his mind as a sacrifice, destined to appease his 
Father and save mankind. 756 A singular taste for perse- 
cution and tortures possessed him. 757 His blood appeared 
to him as the water of a second baptism with which he 
ought to be baptised, and he seemed full of a strange long- 
ing to hasten this baptism, which alone could quench his 
thirst. 758 

The grandeur of his views on the future was at times 
surprising. He did not deceive himself about the terrible 
storm he was to raise in the world. " Think not," he said 
with intrepidity and beauty, " that I am come to send peace 
on earth ; I came not to send peace but a sword. . . . There 
shall be from henceforth five in one house divided, three 

755 Matt. 16: 21-23; 17: 12, 21, 22. 756 Mark 10: 45. 

757 Luke 6: 22, 23. 758 Luke 12: 50= 

229 



LIFE OF JESUS 

against two, and two against three. . . . For I come to set 
a man against his father, and the daughter against her 
mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. 
And a man's foes shall be they of his own household." 759 
" I came to cast fire upon the earth; and what will I, if 
it is already kindled." 76 ° " They shall put you out of the 
synagogues," he continued, " yea, the hour cometh that 
whosoever killeth you shall think that he offereth service 
unto God." 761 "If the world hateth you, ye know that it 
hath hated me before it hated you. Remember the word 
that I said unto you, A servant is not greater than his lord. 
If they persecute me, they will also persecute you." 762 

Carried away by this fearful increase of enthusiasm, and 
governed by the necessity of a mission that day by day 
grew more exalted, Jesus was no longer a free agent; he 
belonged to his work, and, in one sense, to mankind. 
Sometimes one would have said that his reason seemed af- 
fected. He suffered mental anguish and agitation. 763 The 
great vision of the kingdom of God always shining before 
his eyes made him dizzy. It must be remembered that his 
disciples at times thought him mad, 764 and that his enemies 
declared him to be possessed. 765 His excessively passionate 
temperament carried him incessantly beyond the bounds of 
human nature. His work was not a work of reason, and, 
holding the human intellect in derision, what he most im- 
peratively demanded was " faith." This was the word 
most frequently repeated in the little group of saints. 766 
It is the watchword of all popular movements. No such 
movement, it is clear, would take place at all, were it neces- 

76g Matt. 10: 34-36; Luke 12: 51-58: comp. Micah 7: 5, 6. 
760 Luke 12: 49 (see the Greek). 

781 John 16: 2. 762 John 15: 18-20. 

763 John 12: 27. 764 Mark 3: 21, 22. 

765 Mark 3: 22. John 7: 20; 8: 48, 49; 10: 20, 21. 

766 Matt. 8: 10; 9: 2, 22, 28, 29; 17: 19. John 6: 29-33. 



ENTHUSIASM AND EXALTATION 

sary that its author should win his disciples one after 
another by dint of logically deduced demonstrations. Re- 
flection only leads to doubt. If the authors of the French 
Revolution, for example,, had had to be previously convinced 
by prolonged meditations, they would have all grown old 
without achieving anything. Jesus, in like manner, aimed 
less at regular conviction than at the excitement of en- 
thusiasm. Urgent and imperative, he suffered no opposi- 
tion; men had to be converted, nothing less would satisfy 
him. His natural gentleness seemed to have abandoned 
him; at times he was harsh and capricious. 767 Occasionally 
his disciples did not understand him, and in his presence 
had a feeling akin to fear. 768 His displeasure at the slight- 
est opposition led him to inexplicable and apparently ab- 
surd actions. 769 

It was not that his virtue deteriorated; but his struggle 
for the ideal against reality became insupportable. Con- 
tact with the world wounded and revolted him. Obstacles 
caused him irritation. His idea of the Son of God became 
blurred and exaggerated. Divinity is intermittent; one 
cannot be Son of God all through a lifetime without a 
break. One is so at certain times by sudden flashes of 
light which become lost in the midst of long intervals of 
darkness. The fatal law which condemns an idea to decay 
as soon as it seeks the conversion of men applied to him. 
The tone he had adopted could not be kept up for more 
than a few months; it was time that death came to cut 
the knot of a situation strained to the utmost point, to 
remove him from the impossibilities of an interminable 
path, and, by delivering him from an over-prolonged trial, 
to lead him forth sinless into heavenly peace. 

767 Matt. 17: 17; Mark 3: 5, and 9: 19; Luke 8: 45, and 9: 41. 

768 This is specially noticeable in Mark 4: 40, 41; 5: 15; 9: 31; 10: 32. 

769 Mark 11: 12-14,20-23. 

231 



CHAPTER XX 

Opposition to Jesus 

During the first epoch of his career, it seems as though 
Jesus met with no serious opposition. His preachings 
thanks to the extreme liberty enjoyed in Galilee, and to 
the number of teachers who arose on every hand, made 
little impression beyond a somewhat restricted circle. But 
when Jesus entered upon a path brilliant with wonders 
and public successes, the first mutterings of storm began to 
make themselves heard. More than once he had to conceal 
himself and fly. 770 Antipas, however, did not interfere with 
him, although Jesus sometimes made very severe comments 
on him. 771 At Tiberias, his usual residence, 772 the tetrarch 
was only one or two leagues distant from the district 
chosen by Jesus as the centre of his activity; he heard re- 
ports of his miracles, and, no doubt taking them to be clever 
tricks, he desired to see them. 773 Sceptics were at that time 
very curious about jugglery of this description. 774 With his 
ordinary tact, Jesus declined to gratify him. He took care 
not to mingle with an irreligious world which wished to 
derive idle amusement from him; he aspired only to gain 
the people; for the simple he reserved means fitted for 
them alone. 

On one occasion, the report was spread that Jesus was 
none other than John the Baptist risen from the dead. 

770 Matt. 12: 14-16; Mark 3: 7, and 9: 29, 30. 

771 Mark 8: 15; Luke 12: 32. 

772 Josephus, Life, 9; Madden, "History of Jewish Coinage," p. 97 
et seq. 

773 Luke 9: 9; 23: 8. 

774 Lucian, Lucius (authorship doubtful), 4. 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 

Antipas became anxious and ill at ease/ 75 and used artifice 
to rid his dominions of the new prophet. Certain Phari- 
sees, under the pretence of regard for Jesus, came to tell 
him that Antipas was seeking to have him slain. Jesus, 
despite his great simplicity, saw the snare and did not 
depart. 776 His peaceful habits and his abstinence from 
popular agitation ultimately reassured the tetrarch and dis- 
sipated the danger. 

It must not be supposed that the new doctrine was re- 
ceived with equal favour in all the towns of Galilee. Not 
only did sceptical Nazareth continue to repulse him who 
was to become its glory; not only did his brothers persist in 
their lack of faith in him, 777 but the cities of the lake them- 
selves, albeit generally well disposed, were not all con- 
verted. Jesus often complained of the incredulity and 
hardness of heart which he encountered, and although it 
may be natural to make allowance in such reproaches for 
the exaggeration of the preacher, although we are sensible 
of that kind of outcry against the age (convicium seculi) 
which Jesus affected in imitation of John the Baptist, 778 it 
is clear that the country was far from giving itself up en- 
tirely to the kingdom of God. " Woe unto thee, Chorazin ! 
woe unto thee, Bethsaida ! " cried he; " for if the mighty 
works had been done in Tyre and Sidon which were done in 
you, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and 
ashes. Howbeit I say unto you, It shall be more tolerable 
for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment than for you. 
And thou, Capernaum, shalt thou be exalted unto Heaven? 
thou shalt go down unto Hades; for if the mighty works 
had been done in Sodom which were done in thee, it would 

775 Matt. 14: 1, 2; Mark 6: 14-16; Luke 9: 7-9. 

776 Luke 13:31-33. 

777 John 7: 5. 

778 Matt. 12: 39, 45; 13: 15; 16: 4. Luke 11: 29. 



LIFE OF JESUS 

have remained until this day. Howbeit I say unto you, 
That it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in 
the day of judgment than for thee." 779 " The queen of 
Sheba," he added, " shall rise up in judgment with the men 
of this generation, and shall condemn it : for she came from 
the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and 
behold, a greater than Solomon is here. The men of 
Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this genera- 
tion, and shall condemn it: for they repented at the preach- 
ing of Jonah; and behold, a greater than Jonah is here." 780 
His wandering life, at first so full of charm, now began to 
weigh upon him. " The foxes," said he, " have holes, and 
the birds of the heaven have nests ; but the Son of man hath 
not where to lay his head." 781 He accused unbelievers of 
not yielding to evidence. Bitterness and rejDroach became 
more and more frequent with him. 

Jesus, in fact, was not capable of receiving opposition 
with the coolness of the philosopher, who, understanding 
the reasons for the various opinions which share the world, 
finds it perfectly natural that all should not agree with him. 
One of the principal faults of the Jewish race is its harsh- 
ness in controversy, and the abusive tone which it almost 
always imports into it. There have never in the world been 
such bitter quarrels as those of the Jews amongst them- 
selves. It is a feeling for fine shades of opinion that makes 
the polished and moderate man. But lack of this feeling 
is one of the most persistent features of the Semitic mind. 
Subtle and refined works, such as the Dialogues of Plato, 
are altogether foreign to these nations. Jesus, who was 
free from almost all the failings of his race, whose leading 
characteristic indeed was an infinite delicacy, was led, in 

779 Matt. 11: 21-24; Luke 10: 12-15. 

780 Matt. 12: 41, 42; Luke 11: 31, 32. 

781 Matt. 8: 20; Luke 9: 58. 

234 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 

spite of himself, to employ the polemical style in general 
use. 782 Like John the Baptist/ 83 he used very harsh terms 
against his opponents. Of an exquisite gentleness with the 
simple, he was irritated at incredulity, however little aggres- 
sive it might be. 784 He was no longer the mild teacher of 
the " Sermon on the Mount," who had as yet met with 
neither resistance nor difficulty. The passion which under- 
lay his character led him to make use of the keenest in- 
vectives. 785 Jesus applied to himself, not without reason, the 
passage from Isaiah: 786 "He shall not strive, nor cry aloud; 
neither shall any one hear his voice in the streets. A bruised 
reed shall he not break, and smoking flax shall he not 
quench." 787 And yet many of the recommendations ad- 
dressed by him to his disciples contain germs of real 
fanaticism, 788 germs which the Middle Ages were destined 
to develop cruelly. Is he to be reproached for this? No 
revolution is effected without some harshness. Had Luther, 
or the actors in the French Revolution, been compelled to 
observe the rules of politeness, neither Reformation nor 
Revolution would have been accomplished. Let us con- 
gratulate ourselves in like manner that Jesus encountered 
no law to punish the invectives he uttered against one class 
of citizens. Otherwise the Pharisees would have been in- 
violate. All great human things have been achieved in the 
name of absolute principles. A critical philosopher would 

782 Matt. 12: 34; 15: 14; 23: 33. 

783 Matt. 3: 7. 

784 Matt. 12: 30; Luke 21: 23. 

785 This singular mixture ought not to surprise us. A man of our own 
times, M. de Lamennais, has forcibly presented the same contrast. In 
his noble book, "The Words of a Believer," the most immoderate anger 
and the sweetest relentings alternate, as in a mirage. This man, who 
was extremely gentle in the intercourse of life, became unreasonably 
obstinate toward those who did not think as he did. 

780 Chap. 42: 2, 3. 

787 Matt. 12: 19, 20. 

788 Matt. 10: 14, 15, 21, 22, 34-39; Luke 19: 27. 

235 



LIFE OF JESUS 

have said to his disciples : " Respect the opinion of others ; 
and believe that no one is so completely right that his op- 
ponent is completely wrong." But the action of Jesus had 
nothing in common with the disinterested speculation of the 
philosopher. To feel that one has touched the ideal for a 
moment, and has been frustrated by the wickedness of a 
few, is a thought insupportable to a fervent soul. What 
must it have been to the founder of a new world? 

The invincible obstacle to the ideas of Jesus came above 
all from the Pharisees. Jesus diverged more and more 
from the Judaism that was reputed orthodox. Now, the 
Pharisees were the true Jews ; the very nerve and sinew of 
Judaism. Although this party had its headquarters at 
Jerusalem, it had adherents who were either settled in Gali- 
lee, or often resorted there. 789 As a rule they were men of 
narrow mind, greatly concerned with externals; and their 
piety was haughty, formal, and self-satisfied. 790 Their 
manners were ridiculous, and excited the amusement even 
of those who respected them. The epithets which were 
given to them by the people, savouring of caricature, prove 
this. There was the " bandy-legged Pharisee " (Nikfi), 
who walked in the streets shuffling his feet and knocking 
them against the stones; the "bloody-browed Pharisee" 
(Kizai), who went about with his eyes shut to avoid seeing 
women, and dashed his forehead so much against the walls 
that it was always blood-stained; the "pestle Pharisee" 
(Medinkia), who kept himself bent double like the handle 
of a pestle; the "strong-shouldered Pharisee" (Shikmi), 
who walked with his back bent as though on his shoulders 
he carried the whole burden of the Law; the " What-is- 

789 Mark 7: 1; Luke 5: 17, and 7: 36. 

790 Matt. 6:2, 5, 16; 9: 11, 14; 12: 2; 23: 5, 15,23. Luke 5: 30; 6: 2, 7; 
11: 39-41; 18: 12. John 9: 16. Pirke Aboth, 1: 16. Josephus, Antiq., 
17, 2: 4; 18, 1: 3; also Life, 38. Babylonian Talmud, Sola, 22 6. 

236 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 

there-to-do ?-I-do-it Pharisee/' ever on the watch for a pre- 
cept to fulfil; and lastly, "the dyed Pharisee," whose de- 
votional external aspect was but a varnish of hypocrisy. 791 
This strictness, in fact, was often only apparent, and, in 
reality, concealed great moral laxity. 792 The people 
nevertheless were deceived by it. The people, whose in- 
stinct is always right, even when it is most astray as regards 
individuals, is very easily duped by false devotees. That 
which it loves in them is good and worthy of being 
loved ; but it has not sufficient insight to distinguish between 
appearance and reality. 

The antipathy which, in such a highly-strung state of 
society, must necessarily break forth between Jesus and 
men of this character, is easy to understand. Jesus recog- 
nised only the religion of the heart; while that of the 
Pharisees almost exclusively consisted in observances. Jesus 
sought the humble and outcast of all kinds, and in this the 
Pharisees saw an insult to their religion of respectability. 
The Pharisee was an infallible and impeccable man, a 
pedant always right in his own estimation, taking the prin- 
cipal place in the synagogue, praying in the street, giving 
alms to the sound of a trumpet, and ever on the watch for 
salutations. Jesus maintained that every man should await 
the judgment of God with fear and trembling. The evil 
religious tendency represented by Pharisaism did not reign 
without opposition. Many men before or during the time 
of Jesus, such as Jesus son of Sirach (one of the true an- 
cestors of Jesus of Nazareth), Gamaliel, Antigonus of 

m Mishna, Sota, 3: 2; Jerusalem Talmud, Berakoth, 9 (end); Baby- 
lonian Talmud, Sota, 22 b. The two readings of this curious passage 
show marked differences. We have usually followed the Babylonish, 
which seems the more natural (comp. Epiphanius 16: 1). The points in 
Epiphanius, and many in the Talmud, may be referred to a later time, 
when "Pharisee" had come to be a synonym of "devotee." 

792 Matt. 5: 20; 15: 4; 23: 3, 16-33. John 8: 7. Josephus, Antiq., 12, 
9:1; 13, 10:5. 

237 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Soco, and, above all, the gentle and noble Hillel, had taught 
very lofty doctrines almost of a Gospel character. But 
these good seeds had been choked. The beautiful maxims 
of Hillel, summing up the whole Law as equity, 793 those of 
Jesus son of Sirach, making worship consist in doing 
good, 794 were forgotten or anathematised. 795 Shammai, with 
his narrow and exclusive spirit, had conquered. An enor- 
mous mass of " traditions " had stifled the Law, 796 under 
pretext of protecting and interpreting it. No doubt these 
conservative measures may have been useful in their way; 
it is well that the Jewish people should have loved its Law 
even to madness, since it was this frantic love which, by 
saving Mosaism under Antiochus Epiphanes and under 
Herod, preserved the leaven necessary for the birth of 
Christianity. But in themselves, these old precautions were 
only puerile. The synagogue, which was the depository of 
them, was nothing more than a parent of error. Its reign 
was at an end; and yet to require its abdication was to re- 
quire that which an established power has never done or 
been able to do. 

The conflicts of Jesus with official hypocrisy were in- 
cessant. The ordinary tactics of reformers, who come to 
the front in a state of religious matters such as we have 
just described, which may be termed " traditional formal- 
ism," are to oppose the " text " of the sacred books to 
" traditions." Religious zeal always innovates, even when 
it claims to be in the highest degree conservative. Just as 
the neo-Catholics of our own time are steadily growing 
more and more remote from the Gospel, so the Pharisees 
left the Bible at each step farther distant. This is why the 

793 Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 31 a; Joma, 35 b. 
794 Eccles. 17: 21-24; 35: 1-7. 

795 Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, 11: 1; Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 
100 6. 796 Matt. 15:2. 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 

Puritan reformer is, as a rule, essentially " biblical/' tak- 
ing the unchangeable text as a base from which to criticise 
current theology, which has changed from one generation 
to another. Thus acted later, the Karaites and the Prot- 
estants. Jesus applied the axe to the root of the tree much 
more forcibly. Sometimes, it is true, we see him invoke the 
text against the false masores or traditions of the Phari- 
sees. 797 But in general he dwells lightly on exegesis — it is to 
conscience that he appeals. With one stroke he cuts 
through both text and commentaries. While he pointed out 
to the Pharisees that they seriously perverted Mosaism by 
their traditions, he himself made no pretence of a return 
to Moses. His goal was in the future, not in the past. 
Jesus was more than the reformer of an obsolete religion; 
he was the creator of the eternal religion of humanity. 

Disputes broke out, especially regarding a number of 
external practices introduced by tradition, which neither 
Jesus nor his disciples observed. 798 The Pharisees re- 
proached him strongly for this. When he dined with them, 
he greatly scandalised them by failing to observe the cus- 
tomary ablutions. " Give alms," said he, " those things 
which are within ; and all things are clean unto you." 799 
What hurt his sense of delicacy most was the air of assur- 
ance which the Pharisees exhibited in religious matters, and 
their paltry worship, which resulted in a vain search after 
precedence and titles, and by no means in bettering their 
hearts. An admirable parable embodied this thought with 
infinite charm and justice. " Two men," said he, " went up 
into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other 
a publican. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with him- 
self, ' God, I thank thee, that I am not as the rest of men, 

797 Matt. 15: 2-6. Mark 7: 2-8. 

798 Matt. 15: 2-14. Mark 7: 4, 8. Luke 5: 33-39; 6: 1-11; 11: 
37-44. 799 Luke 11: 41. 

239 



LIFE OF JESUS 

extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. 
I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I get.' 
But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so 
much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, 
'God be merciful to me a sinner.' I say, this man went 
down to his house justified rather than the other." 800 

A hatred, which death alone could satisfy, was the con- 
sequence of these controversies. John the Baptist had al- 
ready provoked enmities of the same character. 801 But the 
aristocrats of Jerusalem, who despised him, had permitted 
simple folk to take him for a prophet. 802 In this case how- 
ever the war was to the death. A new spirit had appeared 
in the world, making all that had come before it crumble 
to decay. John the Baptist was essentially a Jew; Jesus 
was scarcely one at all. Jesus always appealed to the deli- 
cacy of the moral sentiment. He was a disputant only 
when he argued against the Pharisees, his opponents forc- 
ing him, as nearly always happens, to adopt their tone. 803 
His exquisite irony, his sharp provocations, always struck 
home. They were everlasting stigmas, which have remained 
festering in the wound. This Nessus-shirt of ridicule, which 
for eighteen centuries the Jew, son of the Pharisees, has 
dragged in tatters after him, was woven by Jesus with di- 
vine skill. Masterpieces of fine raillery, their features are 
written in lines of fire on the flesh of the l^pocrite and the 
false devotee. Incomparable features, worthy of a son of 
God ! Only a god knows how to kill after this fashion. 
Socrates and Moliere can but touch the skin. Jesus carries 
fire and rage to the very marrow. 

But it was also j ust that this great master of irony should 

800 Luke 18: 9-14: comp. 14: 7-11. 

801 Matt. 3: 7-10; 17: 12, 13. 

802 Matt. 14: 5; 21: 26. Mark 11: 32. Luke 20: 6. 

803 Matt. 12:3-8; 13: 16-33. 

240 



OPPOSITION TO JESUS 

pay for his triumph with his life. Even in Galilee, the 
Pharisees sought to ruin him, and put in force against 
him the manoeuvre which was later to prove successful at 
Jerusalem. They endeavoured to interest the partisans 
of the newly-founded political faction in their quarrel. 804 
The facilities for escape found by Jesus in Galilee, and 
the weakness of the government of Antipas, baffled these 
attempts. He ran into danger of his own free will. He 
saw clearly that his action, if he remained confined to Gali- 
lee, was of necessity limited. Judaea drew him as by a 
charm; he wished to attempt one last effort to win the 
rebellious city; and seemed anxious to fulfil the proverb — 
that a prophet ought not to die outside Jerusalem (Luke 
13:33). 

804 Mark 3: 6. 



241 



CHAPTER XXI 

The Last Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem 

For a long time Jesus had been aware of the dangers 
surrounding him. 805 During a period of time which may- 
be estimated at eighteen months, he avoided going on pil- 
grimage to the holy city. 806 At the feast of Tabernacles of 
the year 32 (according to the hypothesis we have adopted) 
his relatives, always malevolent and sceptical/ 07 pressed him 
to go there. The evangelist John seems to insinuate that 
in this invitation there was some hidden project to ruin 
Jesus. " Go into Judaea; show yourself to the world; things 
like these are never done in secret. Go to Judasa where 
people can see what you do " (John 7: 3,4). Jesus, sus- 
pecting some treachery, at first refused; but when the cara- 
van of pilgrims had started, he set out on the journey, un- 
known to every one, and almost alone. 808 It was the last 
farewell that he bade to Galilee. The feast of Tabernacles 
fell at the autumnal equinox. Six months had still to elapse 
before the fatal consummation. But during this interval 
Jesus never again saw his beloved northern land. The days 
of pleasantness have passed away; step by step he must 
now traverse the path of sorrows that will only end in the 
anguish of death. 

His disciples, and the pious women who followed him, 
met him again in Judaea. 809 But how greatly was all 
changed for him here ! In Jerusalem Jesus was a stranger. 

805 Matt. 16: 20, 21; Mark 8: 30, 31. 

806 John 7: 1. 

807 John 7: 5. 

808 John 7: 10. 

809 Matt. 27: 55; Mark 15: 41; Luke 23: 49, 55. 

242 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

Here he felt a wall of resistance he could not penetrate. 
Hemmed in by snares and difficulties, he was unceasingly 
dogged by the enmity of the Pharisees. 810 Instead of that 
illimitable faculty of belief, the happy gift of youthful 
natures, which he found in Galilee — instead of those good 
and gentle folk, amongst whom objections (which are 
always in part the fruit of evil thinking and indocility) had 
no existence, here at every step he met with an obstinate 
scepticism, upon which the means of action that had succeded 
in the north so well had little effect. His disciples were 
despised as being Galileans. Nicodemus, who, on one of 
the former visits of Jesus, had had a nocturnal interview, 
almost compromised himself with the Sanhedrim by his 
desire to defend him. "Art thou also of Galilee?" they 
said to him. " Search and see that out of Galilee ariseth no 
prophet." m 

The city, as we have already remarked, displeased Jesus. 
Until now he had always avoided great centres, preferring 
rural districts and towns of small importance for his field 
of action. Many of the precepts which he gave to his 
apostles were absolutely inapplicable, except in a simple 
community of humble folk. 812 Since he had no conception 
of the world, and was accustomed only to the kindly com- 
munism of Galilee, remarks constantly escaped him, the 
simplicity of which might well appear odd at Jerusalem. 813 
His imagination and his love of nature felt constraint 
within its walls. It is not the destiny of true religion to 
emerge from the tumult of towns, but from the tranquil 
quietude of the fields. 

The arrogance of the priests made the courts of the 

810 John 7: 20, 25, 30, 32. 

811 John 7: 50-52. 

812 Matt. 10: 11-13; Mark 6: 10; Luke 10: 5-8. 

813 Matt. 16: 3; Mark 11: 3; 14: 13, 14; Luke 19: 31; 22: 10-12. 

243 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Temple disagreeable to him. One day some of his disciples, 
who knew Jerusalem better than he, wished him to notice 
the beauty of the Temple buildings, the admirable choice 
of materials, and the richness of the votive offerings which 
covered the walls. " See ye not all these things," said he; 
" verily I say unto you there shall not be left here one 
stone upon another." 814 He refused to admire anything, 
unless it was a poor widow who passed at that moment 
and threw a small coin into the box. " This poor widow 
cast in more than they all," said he; " for all these did of 
their superfluity cast in unto their gifts : but she of her want 
did cast in all the living that she had." 815 This habit of 
criticising all that was going on at Jerusalem, of exalting 
the poor who gave little, of slighting the rich who gave 
much, 816 and of rebuking the wealthy priests who did noth- 
ing for the good of the people, naturally exasperated the 
sacerdotal caste. As the seat of a conservative aristocracy, 
the Temple, like the Mussulman Haram which has suc- 
ceeded it, was the last place in the world in which revolu- 
tions could triumph. Imagine a reformer going in our own 
time to preach the overthrow of Islamism round the Mosque 
of Omar ! The Temple, however, was the centre of Jewish 
life, the point at which victory or death was essential. On 
this Calvary, where Jesus assuredly suffered more than at 
Golgotha, his days were passed in disputation and bitter- 
ness, in the midst of tedious controversies about canonical 
law and exegesis, for which his great moral grandeur, far 
from giving him any advantage, positively unfitted him. 

In his troubled life at this period, the sensitive and 
kindly heart of Jesus was able to find a refuge, where he 

814 Matt. 24: 1,2; Mark 13: 1, 2; Luke 19: 44, and 21: 5, 6; comp. Mark 
6: 11). 

815 Mark 12: 41-44; Luke 21: 1-4. 

816 Mark 12: 41. 

244 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

enjoyed much tranquillity. After having passed the day 
disputing in the Temple, Jesus used to descend at evening 
into the valley of Kedron, and rest awhile in the orchard 
of a kind of farm (probably a place where oil was made) 
called Gethsemane, 817 which served as a pleasure-garden to 
the inhabitants. Thence he would proceed to pass the 
night upon the Mount of Olives, which shuts in the horizon 
of the city on the east. 818 This district is the only one, in 
the neighbourhood of Jerusalem, presenting an aspect that 
is in any way pleasing and verdant. Groves of olives, figs, 
and palms were numerous there, and gave their names to 
the villages, farms, or enclosures of Bethphage, Gethsem- 
ane, and Bethany. 819 Upon the Mount of Olives were two 
great cedars, the memory of which was long cherished 
amongst the dispersed Jews; their branches served as a 
refuge for bevies of doves, and under their shade were 
established small bazaars. 820 The whole precinct was in a 
manner the abode of Jesus and his disciples ; they evidently 
knew it field by field and house by house. 

In particular the village of Bethany, 821 situated at the 
summit of the hill, upon the slope which commands the 
Dead Sea and the Jordan, at a journey of an hour and a 
half from Jerusalem, was the place especially loved by 
Jesus. 822 There he made the acquaintance of a family of 
three persons, two sisters and a third member, whose friend- 

817 Mark 11 : 19; Luke 22 : 39; John 18: 1, 2. This cannot be far from 
a spot where Catholic piety has enclosed a few old olive trees by a wall. 
The word "Gethsemane" apparently signifies "oil-press." 

818 Luke 21: 37, ana 22: 39; John 8: 1, 2. 

819 This we may infer from the meaning of the names (Beth-phage, 
"place of figs," Bethany, "of dates," and Gethsemane), though they 
may be interpreted differently: see Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim, 53 a. 

820 Jerusalem Talmud, Taanith, 4: 8. 

821 Now El-azirieh, from El-Azir, Arabic for Lazarus: mediaeval, 
Lazarium. 

822 Matt. 21: 17, 18; Mark 11: 11, 12. 

245 



LIFE OF JESUS 

ship had a great charm for him. 823 Of the two sisters, the 
one called Martha was an obliging, kind woman, assiduous 
in her attentions, 824 while the other, Mary, on the contrary, 
pleased Jesus by a placidity of temperament, 825 and by her 
highly developed speculative tendencies. Seated at the feet 
of Jesus, she often forgot, in listening to his words, the 
duties of everyday life. Her sister, upon whom all these 
duties devolved at such times, gently complained. " Martha, 
Martha," said Jesus to her, " thou art anxious and troubled 
about many things ; but one thing is needful. For Mary 
hath chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away 
from her." 826 A certain Simon the Leper, who was the 
owner of the house, was apparently the brother of Mary 
and Martha, 827 or at least formed part of the family. It 
was there that, in the midst of pious friendship, Jesus for- 
got the vexations of public life. In this quiet home he con- 
soled himself for the wrangling which the scribes and the 
Pharisees never ceased to raise around him. He often sat 
on the Mount of Olives, facing Mount Moriah, 828 having 
under his eyes the splendid perspective of the terraces of 
the Temple, and its roofs covered with glittering plates of 

823 Johnll:5, 35, 36. 

824 Luke 10: 38—42; John 12: 2. Luke seems to put the dwelling on 
the road from Galilee to Jerusalem; but the locality here indicated 
(chap. 9: 51 to 18: 31) is unintelligible if taken literally. Sundry inci- 
dents of this portion of the narrative seem to have occurred at or near 
Jerusalem. 

825 Johnll:20. 

826 Luke 10: 38^.2. 

827 Matt. 26: 6; Mark 14: 3; Luke 7: 40, 43; John 11: 1-46 ana 12: 
1-3. The name of Lazarus, given to the brother of Mary and Martha 
in the fourth Gospel, seems to come from the parable in Luke 16: 19-31 
(note especially verses 30, 31). The epithet "leper" given to Simon, 
corresponding with the phrase "full of sores" (Luke 16: 20), may have 
led to the curious grouping in the fourth Gospel; while the awkward 
explanation given in John 11: 1, 2, shows clearly that Lazarus is a less 
substantial person in the tradition than the two sisters. 

828 Mark 13: 3. 

246 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

metal. This view used to strike strangers with admiration; 
at sunrise especially the holy mountain dazzled the eyes, 
and seemed as it were a mass of snow and gold. 829 But a 
profound feeling of sadness poisoned for Jesus the spec- 
tacle that filled all other Israelites with joy and pride. " O 
Jerusalem, Jerusalem which killeth the prophets, and 
stoneth them that are sent unto her ! how often would I have 
gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her 
chickens under her wings, and ye would not." 83 ° 

It was not that many honest souls here, as in Galilee, 
were not touched; but such was the weight of the dominant 
orthodoxy, that very few dared to avow it. Men feared to 
discredit themselves in the eyes of the public at Jerusalem 
by placing themselves in the school of a Galilean. They 
would have risked expulsion from the synagogue, which, in 
a mean and bigoted society, was the greatest degradation 
possible. 831 Excommunication besides carried with it con- 
fiscation of all property. 832 By ceasing to be a Jew, a man 
did not become a Roman; he remained defenceless under 
the power of a theocratic legislation of the most atrocious 
severity. One day the lower officers of the Temple, who 
had been present at one of the discourses of Jesus, and 
had been enchanted with it, came to confide their doubts 
to the priests: " Hath any of the rulers believed on him, 
or of the Pharisees?" was the reply to them; "but this 
multitude who knoweth not the Law are accursed." 833 
Jesus thus remained at Jerusalem, a provincial admired by 

829 Josephus, Wars, 5, 5:6. 

830 Matt. 23: 37; Luke 13: 34. These words, like those in Matt. 23: 
34, 35, seem to be a quotation from some apocryphal prophecy, perhaps 
Enoch. (See the passages given in the introduction, pp. 41, 42, and 
near the close of this chapter, p. 340, note 4.) 

831 John 7: 13; 12: 42, 43; 19: 38. 

832 Ezra 10: 8; Heb. 10: 34; Jerusalem Talmud, Moed katon, 3: 1. 

833 John 7: 45-52. 

247 



LIFE OF JESUS 

provincials like himself, but rejected by all the aristocracy 
of the nation. Chiefs of schools and of sects were too 
numerous for any one to be stirred by seeing one more 
appear. His voice made little impression in Jerusalem. 
Racial and sectarian prejudices, the open enemies of the 
spirit of the Gospel, were too deeply rooted. 

His teaching in this new world necessarily became greatly 
modified. His beautiful discourses, the effect of which was 
always marked upon hearers with youthful imaginations 
and consciences morally pure, here fell upon stone. He 
who was so much at ease on the shores of his charming 
little lake felt constrained and in a strange land when he 
confronted pedants. His perpetual self-assertion became 
almost disdainful. 834 He had to become controversialist, 
jurist, exegetist, and theologian. His conversations, gen- 
erally so full of grace, were transformed into a rolling fire 
of disputes, an interminable series of scholastic battles. 835 
His harmonious genius was wasted away in insipid argu- 
mentations upon the Law and the Prophets, 836 in which we 
should have preferred not to see him sometimes play the 
part of aggressor. 837 With a regrettable condescension he 
lent himself to the captious criticisms to which tactless 
cavillers subjected him. 838 As a rule he extricated himself 
from difficulties with much skill. His reasonings, it is true, 
were often subtle (for simplicity of mind and subtlety are 
akin; when simplicity reasons, it is always a little sophisti- 
cal) ; we find that he sometimes courted misconceptions, and 
intentionally prolonged them ; 839 his reasoning, j udged by 
the rules of Aristotelian logic, was very weak. But when 

834 John 8: 13-18. 835 Matt. 21 : 23-27. 

836 Matt. 22: 23-33. 837 Ibid. 22: 41^5. 

838 Ibid. 22: 36-40, 46. 

839 See especially the discussions reported in the fourth Gospel, chap. 8. 
Such passages, we hasten to add, have no other value than as very 
ancient conjectures regarding his life. 

248 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

the unparalleled charm of his mind could be shown, he was 
triumphant. One day it was intended to embarrass him by 
presenting an adulteress to him, and asking him what 
should be done with her. We know the admirable response 
of Jesus. 840 The fine raillery of a man of the world, tem- 
pered by a divine charity, could not be more exquisitely 
expressed. But the wit allied to moral grandeur is that 
which fools can least forgive. With his words so just and 
pure in their taste: "He that is without sin among you, 
let him first cast a stone at her," Jesus pierced hypocrisy 
to the heart, and with the same stroke sealed his own death- 
warrant. 

It is probable indeed that, but for the exasperation 
caused by so many bitter shafts, Jesus might have long 
been able to remain unnoticed, and might have lost himself 
in the terrible storm which was soon to overwhelm the whole 
Jewish nation. The higher priesthood and the Sadducees 
rather disdained than hated him. The great sacerdotal 
families, the Boethusim, the family of Hanan, were fanati- 
cal only when their peace was threatened. The Saddu- 
cees, like Jesus, rejected the "traditions" of the Phari- 
sees. 841 By a very strange singularity, it was these sceptics, 
denying the resurrection, the oral Law, and the existence of 
angels, who were the true Jews. Or rather, since the old 
Law in its simplicity no longer satisfied the religious wants 
of the time, those who held strictly to it and rejected mod- 
ern inventions were regarded by devotees as impious, just 

840 John 8: 3-11. This passage did not make part of the original 
Gospel; it is wanting in the oldest MSS., and the reading is uncertain. 
Still, it is a very early gospel tradition, as shown in verses 6, 8, which are 
not in the manner of Luke and later compilers, who insert only what 
explains itself. The incident seems to have been known to Papias, and 
was in the Gospel of the Hebrews: see Euseb. Hist., 3: 39; and Ap- 
pendix, post 

841 Josephus, Antiq.y 12, 10: 6; 18, 1: 4. 

249 



LIFE OF JESUS 

as an evangelical Protestant of the present day is con- 
sidered an unbeliever in Catholic countries. At all events, 
from a party such as this no very strong reaction against 
Jesus could proceed. The official priesthood, with its atten- 
tion concentrated on political power and closely connected 
with the former party, did not understand enthusiastic 
movements of this kind. It was the middle class Pharisees, 
the innumerable soferim or scribes making a living by the 
science of "traditions," who took the alarm; and it was 
their prej udices and interests that in reality were threatened 
by the doctrine of the new Master. 

One of the most constant efforts of the Pharisees was to 
draw Jesus into the political arena, and to compromise him 
as being attached to the party of Judas the Gaulonite. 
Their tactics were clever; for all the deep wisdom of Jesus 
was required to avoid embroilment with the Roman au- 
thority, in his preaching of the kingdom of God. They 
desired to cut through his ambiguity, and force him to 
explain himself. One day a group of Pharisees, and of 
those politicians who were called " Herodians " (probably 
some of the Boethusim), approached him, and, under the 
pretence of pious zeal, said, " Master, we know that thou 
art true, and teachest the way of God in truth, and carest 
not for any one. . . . Tell us therefore, What thinkest 
thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not? " 
They hoped for a response which would give them a pre- 
text for delivering him up to Pilate. The answer of Jesus 
was admirable. He made them show him the image of a 
coin: " Render therefore," said he, " unto Caesar the things 
that are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are 
God's." 842 Such were the profound words which decided 

842 Matt. 22: 15-22; Mark 12: 13-17; Luke 20: 20-26: comp. Jerusalem 
Talmud, Sanhedrin, 2: 3; Rom. 13: 6, 7. It may be doubted whether 
the incident is literally true. The coins of Herod, Archelaus and Antipas 

250 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

the future of Christianity! Words of the most perfect 
spirituality, and of marvellous justice, which established 
the separation of the spiritual from the temporal, and 
laid the foundation of true liberalism and true civilisation! 
His gentle and irresistible genius inspired him, when 
alone with his disciples, with accents full of tenderness. 
'" Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by 
the door unto the fold of the sheep, but climbeth up some 
other way, the same is a thief and a robber. But he that 
entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. . . . 
The sheep hear his voice: and he calleth his own sheep 
by name, and leadeth them out. He goeth before them, 
and the sheep follow him; for they know his voice. . . . 
The thief cometh not, but that he may steal, and kill, and 
destroy. He that is an hireling and not a shepherd, whose 
own the sheep are not, beholdeth the wolf coming, and 
leaveth the sheep, and fleeth. I am the good shepherd and 
I know mine own, and mine own know me, and I lay down 
my life for the sheep." 843 The idea that the crisis of 
humanity was close at hand frequently recurred to him: 
"Now," said he, "from the fig-tree learn her parable: 
When her branch is now become tender, and putteth forth 

(before the reign of Caligula) have not the emperor's name or head. 
Those struck at Jerusalem under the procurators have his name, but 
not his image (Eckhel, Doctr. 3: 497, 498). The coins of Philip have 
the emperor's name and head (Levy, Gesch. derjiid. Miinzen, 67; Madden, 
Hist, of Jewish Coinage, p. 80). But these coins, struck at Paneas, 
are all pagan; besides, they were not the proper coinage of Jerusalem: 
founded, therefore, on them, the argument of Jesus has no support. To 
suppose that he made his reply in view of coins struck outside of Pales- 
tine, with the effigy of Tiberius {Revue numism. 1860, p. 159), is unlikely. 
It would seem that the fine Christian aphorism has been antedated. 
The idea that the effigy on coins is a mark of sovereignty is found, fur- 
ther, in the care taken (at least under the second revolt) to restamp the 
Roman money, marking it with Jewish images (Levy, p. 104 et seq.; 
Madden, pp. 176, 203). 

843 John 10: 1-16, — a passage confirmed by the Clementine homilies, 
3:52. 

251 



LIFE OF JESUS 

its leaves, ye know that the summer is nigh. Lift up your 
eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to 
harvest." 844 

His powerful eloquence always burst forth when he had 
to contend with hypocrisy. " The Scribes and the Pharisees 
sit on Moses' seat; all things therefore whatsoever they bid 
you, these do and observe : but do not ye after their works ; 
for they say, and do not. Yea, they bind heavy burdens 
and grievous to be borne, and lay them on men's shoulders ; 
but they themselves will not move them with their finger. 
But all their works do they for to be seen of men: for 
they make broad their phylacteries 845 and enlarge the 
borders of their garments, 846 and love the chief place at 
feasts, and the chief seats in the synagogues, and the salu- 
tation in the market-places, and to be called Rabbi, rabbi ! 
But woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! because 
ye shut the kingdom of heaven against men: for ye enter 
not in yourselves, neither suffer ye them that are entering 
in to enter. 847 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypo- 
crites ! for ye devour widows' houses, even while for a pre- 
tence ye make long prayers : therefore ye shall receive 
greater condemnation. Woe unto you, for ye compass sea 
and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, 
ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves ! 
Woe unto you! for ye are as the tombs which appear not, 
and the men that walk over them know it not. 848 Woe unto 

844 Matt. 24: 32; Mark 13: 28; Luke 21: 30; John 4: 35. 

845 Tolafoth or tefillin — strips of metal or parchment containing pas- 
sages of the Law, worn by devout Jews on the brow or left arm, so as 
to obey literally the injunctions of Exodus 13: 9; Deut. 6: 8, and 11: 18. 

846 Zizith, red borders or fringes, worn by Jews at the edge of the 
cloak as a mark of distinction from Pagans (Num. 15: 38, 39; Deut. 
22: 12). 

847 Excluding men from the kingdom of God by petty casuistry, which 
makes admission difficult and deters the simple. 

848 To touch a grave made one "unclean;" hence the boundary was 

252 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for ye tithe mint 
and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier 
matters of the law, judgment, and mercy, and faith: but 
these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other 
undone. Ye blind guides, which strain at the gnat, and 
swallow the camel. 

" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, 849 but 
within they are full from extortion and excess. Thou blind 
Pharisee, 850 cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the 
platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. 831 

" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites ! for 
ye are like unto whited sepulchres, 852 which outwardly ap- 
pear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, 
and of all uncleanness. Even so ye also outwardly appear 
righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy 
and iniquity. 

" Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees ! hypocrites ! for 
ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the 
tombs of the righteous, and say, If we had been in the days 
of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them 
in the blood of the prophets. Wherefore, ye witness to 

carefully marked on the ground (Babylonian Talmud, Baba bathra, 
58 a; Baba metsia, 45 6). The reproach here addressed to the Pharisees 
is of having devised a multitude of petty precepts which might be violated 
ignorantly, serving only to multiply legal technicalities. 

8i9 For this the rules were extremely intricate: see Mark 7:4. 

850 This epithet "blind," so often repeated (Matt. 23: 16, 17, 19, 24, 26), 
very likely refers to the Pharisaic habit of walking with the eyes closed, 
in affectation of piety (see ante, p. 236). 

851 According to Luke 11: 37-41, this was spoken at a repast, in answer 
to certain vain scruples of the Pharisees. 

852 As tombs were legally "unclean," it was customary to whitewash 
them, to warn against approaching them. See p. 339, note 4 ; also Mishna, 
Maasar scheni, 5:1; Jerusalem Talmud, Schekalim, 1:1; Maasar scheni, 
5: 1; Moed katon 1:2; Sota 9: 1; Babylonian Talmud, Moed Jcaton, 5 a. 
Perhaps there is here an allusion to the "painted Pharisees" (see ante, 
p. 237). 

253 



LIFE OF JESUS 

yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. 
Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. Well said the 
Wisdom of God. 853 Therefore, behold, I will send unto 
you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them 
shall ye kill and crucify ; and some of them shall ye scourge 
in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city. That 
upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the 
earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood 
of Zachariah, son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the 
sanctuary and the altar. 854 Verily, I say unto you, all these 
things shall come upon this generation." 855 

His terrible doctrine of the substitution of the Gentiles — 
the idea that the kingdom of God was about to be passed 
over to others, because those for whom it was destined 
would not receive it, 856 used to recur as a fearful menace 
against the aristocracy. The title " Son of God," which 
he openly assumed in vivid parables, wherein his enemies 
were depicted as murderers of the heavenly messengers, 
was an open defiance to the Judaism of the Law. 857 The 
bold appeal he addressed to the poor was yet more seditious. 
He declared that he had come, " that they which see not 

853 This passage seems to be from the Book of Enoch. Parts of the 
revelations ascribed to this patriarch were put in the mouth of the Divine 
Wisdom: comp. Enoch 37: 1-4; 48: 1, 7; 49: 1; also Book of Jubilees, 
chap 7, with Luke 11: 49 (See Introduction, p. 336, note 1133). This 
apocrypha was possibly of Christian origin (See Matt. 23: 34, where some 
points were doubtless added after the death of Jesus). The citation may 
be a relatively late addition; it is wanting in Mark. 

854 There is a confusion here, found also in the Targum of Jonathan 
(Lam. 2: 20), between Zachariah son of Jehoiada and Zachariah the 
prophet, son of Barachiah. The reference is to the former (2 Chron. 24: 21). 
With Chronicles, in which the murder of Zachariah is related, the Hebrew 
canon ends. This murder is the last in the list of murders of holy men, 
set forth in the order in which they occur in the Bible, — Abel being first. 

855 Matt. 23: 2-36; Mark 12: 38-40; Luke 11: 39-52, and 20: 46, 47. 

856 Matt. 8: 11, 12; 20: 1-16; 21: 28-32, 33-41, 43; 22: 1-14. Mark 
12:1-11. Luke 20: 9-16. 

857 Matt. 21: 37-41; Mark 12: 6: Luke 20: 9; John 10: 33-38 

254 



LAST JOURNEY TO JERUSALEM 

may see, and that they which see may become blind." 858 
One day, his dislike of the Temple evoked an imprudent 
speech from him: " I will destroy this Temple that is made 
with hands, and in three days I will build another made 
without hands." 859 We do not know what meaning Jesus 
attached to this saying, in which his disciples sought for 
strained allegories; but, as only a pretext was wanted, it 
was quickly fastened upon. It reappeared in the preamble 
of his death-warrant, and rang in his ears amid the last 
agonies of Golgotha. These irritating discussions always 
ended in tumult. The Pharisees cast stones at him, 860 in 
doing which they only fulfilled an article in the Law, which 
commanded that every prophet, even a thaumaturgist, who 
should turn the people from the ancient worship, was to be 
stoned without a hearing. 861 At other times they called him 
mad, possessed, a Samaritan, 862 and even sought to slay 
him. 863 His words were noted in order to draw down upon 
him the laws of an intolerant theocracy, which had not yet 
been abrogated by the Roman power. 864 

858 John 9: 39. 

859 The most authentic form seems to be that in Mark 14: 58; 15: 29; 
comp. John 2: 19; Matt. 26: 61, and 27: 40; Acts 6: 13, 14. 

880 John 8: 39; 10: 31; 11: 8. 

861 Deut 13: 1-10; comp. Luke 20: 6; John 10: 33; 2 Cor. 11: 25. 

882 John 10: 20. 

883 Ibid. 5: 18; 7: 1, 20, 25, 30; 8: 37, 40. 
864 Lukell:53, 54. 



255 



CHAPTER XXII 

Machinations of the Enemies of Jesus 

Jesus spent the autumn and part of the winter at Jeru- 
salem. The latter season is somewhat cold there. 865 The 
portico of Solomon, with its covered aisles, was the place 
where he habitually walked about. 866 This portico, the only 
vestige extant of the buildings of the ancient Temple, con- 
sisted of two galleries, formed by two rows of columns and 
the wall overlooking the valley of Kedron. 867 It was en- 
tered by the Gate of Shushan, the door-posts of which are 
still to be seen inside what is now called the " golden 
gate." 868 Even then the other side of the valley was 
adorned with sumptuous tombs. Some of the monuments, 
to be seen at the present day, were perhaps the cenotaphs 
in honour of ancient prophets, 869 which Jesus pointed out 
when, seated under the portico, he thundered against the 
official classes, who sheltered their hypocrisy or their vanity 
behind these colossal piles. 870 

At the end of the month of December, he observed at 
Jerusalem the feast established by Judas Maccabeus in 
memory of the purification of the Temple after the sac- 
rileges of Antiochus Epiphanes. 871 It was also called the 

866 Jerusalem is something over 2,500 feet above the sea level, according 
to Vignes (Conn, des Temps, 1886); or 2,440, according to Captain 
Wilson (Le Lien, Aug. 4, 1886). 

866 John 10: 23. See Vogue's restoration in Le Temple, etc., pi. 15, 16, 
pp. 12, 22, 50. (See the description in "History of Israel," 10: 7.) 

867 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 7; Wars, 5, 5: 2. 

868 Apparently of the time of Justinian. 

869 See ante, p. 253. The so-called "tomb of Zecharia" was perhaps 
such a monument; compare Itin. a Burdig. Hierus., p. 153 (ed. Schott). 

870 Matt. 23: 29* Luke 11: 47. 

871 John 10: 22;' comp. 1 Mace. 4: 45-54; 2 Mace. 10: 6-8. 

256 



ENEMIES OF JESUS 

" Feast of Lights/' because, during the eight days of the 
feast, lamps were kept lighted in the houses. 872 Soon after- 
wards Jesus undertook a journey into Perea, and to the 
banks of the Jordan — that is to say, into the very districts 
he had visited some years before, when he followed the 
school of John/ 73 and where he had himself administered 
baptism. He seems to have found consolation in this 
journey, especially at Jericho. This city, as the terminus 
of several important routes, or, it may be, because of its 
gardens of spices and its richly cultivated soil, was a cus- 
toms station of importance. 874 The chief receiver, Zaccheus, 
a rich man, desired to see Jesus. 875 As he was of small 
stature, he climbed a sycamore tree near the road along 
which the procession was to pass. Jesus was touched with 
this simplicity in a prominent man, and, at the risk of 
giving offence, he determined to stay in the house of 
Zaccheus. There was indeed much dissatisfaction at his 
honouring the house of a sinner by this visit. On leaving 
Jesus declared his host to be a good son of Abraham; and, 
as though to add to the vexation of the orthodox, Zaccheus 
became a holy man; he gave, it was said, the half of his 
possessions to the poor, and restored fourfold to those 
whom he might have wronged. But this was not the only 
joy which Jesus experienced in Jericho. As he went out of 
the town, the beggar Bartimaeus 876 pleased him much by 
persisting in calling him " Son of David," even although 

872 Josephus, Antiq., 12, 7: 7. 

873 John 10: 40; comp. Matt. 19: 1, and 20: 29; Mark 10: 1, 46; Luke 
18: 35, and 19: 1. This journey is known to the Synoptics, but by Matt, 
and Mark is referred to the advance from Galilee by way of Peraea. 
The topography of Luke is unintelligible unless we suppose chapters 
10-18 refer to incidents in the near vicinity of Jerusalem. 

874 Eccles. 24: 18; Strabo, 16, 2: 41; Justin, 36: 3; Josephus, Antiq., 
4, 6: 1, 14, 4: 1, and 15, 4: 2; Babyl. Talmud, Berakoih, 43 a. 

875 Luke 19: 1-10 (a dubious episode). 

876 Matt. 20: 29; Mark 10: 46-52; Luke 18: 35. 

257 



LIFE OF JESUS 

told to be silent. The cycle of Galilean miracles appeared 
for a time to be renewed in this country, which in many 
respects resembled the northern provinces. The delightful 
oasis of Jericho, which was at that time well watered, must 
have been one of the most beautiful places in Syria. 
Josephus speaks of it with the same admiration as of Gali- 
lee, and calls it, like the latter province, a " divine land." 877 
After Jesus had accomplished this kind of pilgrimage to 
the scenes of his earliest prophetic activity, he returned to 
his beloved abode at Bethany. 878 What must have most 
afflicted the faithful Galileans at Jerusalem was that he 
worked no miracles there. Weary of the cold reception 
which the kingdom of God found in the capital, it would 
seem that the friends of Jesus wished at times for a great 
miracle which should powerfully impress Hierosolymite 
scepticism. A resurrection from the dead necessarily ap- 
peared most likely to carry conviction. We may suppose 
that Mary and Martha opened their minds to Jesus on this 
matter. Fame already attributed two or three acts of the 
kind to him. 879 " If some one rose from the dead," the 
pious sisters no doubt said, " perhaps the living would 
repent." " No," Jesus must have replied, " even were a 
man raised from the dead they would not believe." 88 ° Then, 
recalling a story familiar to him, that of the good beggar 
covered with sores who died and was carried by the angels 
into Abraham's bosom, 881 he may have added, " Lazarus 

877 Josephus, Wars, 4, 8: 3; comp. ibid. 1, 6: 6 and 18: 5; Ardiq., 
15, 4: 2. 

878 John 11:1. 

879 Matt. 9: 18, 19, 22-26; Mark 5: 22-24, 35-43; Luke 7: 11-17, 
and 8: 41, 42, 49-56. 

880 Luke 16: 30, 31. 

881 Quite probably, the allegorical person here called "Lazarus" 
OlVJPK "whom God helps," or 1TJTK7. "who has no help") indicating 
the people of Israel, — "the poor man" beloved of God, a phrase familiar 
both to prophet and psalmist [see, respecting the Anavim, "History of 

258 



ENEMIES OF JESUS 

might return and they would not have faith." Later, singu- 
lar misconceptions arose on this subject. The hypothesis 
was transformed into an actual fact. People spoke of 
Lazarus as having been raised from the dead, and of the 
unpardonable obstinacy of those who could resist such 
testimony. The sores of Lazarus and the leprosy of Simon 
the Leper were confused with one another/ 82 and the idea 
that Mary and Martha had a brother called Lazarus/ 83 
whom Jesus caused to come forth from the tomb/ 84 became 
part of the tradition. When one knows of what inexact 
rumours and cock-and-bull stories the gossip of an Eastern 
town consists, one does not even regard it as impossible 
that a report of this nature may have been current in Jeru- 
salem in the lifetime of Jesus, and that it may have had 
fatal consequences for him. 

Somewhat remarkable indications, in fact, seem to lead 
us to believe that certain causes proceeding from Bethany 
contributed to hasten the death of Jesus. 885 At moments 
one is tempted to suppose that the family at Bethany were 
guilty of some imprudence, or fell into an excess of zeal. 
Perhaps the ardent desire of silencing those who scornfully 
denied the divine mission of their friend drove these wom- 
en, who were of passionate nature, beyond all bounds. It 

the People of Israel," 4: 26], — had been consecrated, before the time of 
Jesus, by some popular legend, or in some book now lost. 

882 It may be noted how forced and unnatural is the juncture of the 
verse Luke 16: 23, where we seem to find one of those fusions of alien 
elements common in Luke. (See introduction, p. 64.) 

883 Observe the curious juxtaposition in John 11: 1, 2: Lazarus is 
first introduced as an unknown person, — t\s dadeviu Aa(apos " one Lazarus, 
a sick man," — and is directly after found to be a brother of Mary and 
Mlartha 

884 1 have no doubt that John 11: 1-16 is parallel with Luke 14: 19-31: 
not that the fourth evangelist had the text of Luke before his eyes, but 
both are derived, doubtless, from kindred traditions. See Value of the 
Fourth Gospel passim. 

885 John 11: 46-53; 12: 2, 9, 10, 17-19. 

259 



LIFE OF JESUS 

must also be remembered that in this impure and depressing 
Jerusalem Jesus was no longer himself. Not by any fault 
of his own, but by that of men, his conscience had lost 
something of its early purity. In despair and driven to 
extremity, he was no longer his own master. His mission 
weighed him down and he let himself be carried away by 
the torrent. In a few days death was to give him his divine 
freedom and rescue him from the fatal necessities of a 
position which at every hour demanded more of him, grew 
more difficult to hold. 

The contrast between his ever-increasing exaltation and 
the indifference of the Jews became wider day by day. At 
the same time the public authorities began to be bitter 
against him. In the month of February or early in March 
a council of the chief priests was assembled, 886 and at this 
council the question was clearly put: " Can Jesus and 
Judaism exist together? " To raise the question was to 
resolve it; and, without being a prophet, as the evangelist 
would have it, the high priest might very naturally pro- 
nounce his cruel axiom: " It is expedient for you that one 
man should die for the people." 

" The high priest of that year," to use an expression of 
the fourth Gospel, which well expresses the state of abase- 
ment to which the sovereign pontificate had been reduced, 
was Joseph Kai'apha, who had been appointed by Valerius 
Gratus, and was entirely devoted to the Romans. Since 
Jerusalem had been under the government of procurators, 
the office of high priest had become a revocable post, and 
changes in it took place nearly every year. 887 Kai'apha 
however held it longer than any one else. He assumed 
his office in the year 25, and he did not lose it till the 

888 John 10: 47-53. 

887 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 3: 1; 18, 2: 2, and 5: 3; 20, 9: 1, 4. Jerusalem 
Talmud, Joma, 1:1; Babylonian Talmud, Joma, 47 a. 

260 



ENEMIES OF JESUS 

year 36. Nothing is known of his character, and many 
circumstances lead to the belief that his power was only 
nominal. Beside and above him indeed we always see 
another man who, at the decisive moment we have now 
reached, appears to have exercised a preponderating power. 
This man was Hanan or Annas/ 88 son of Seth, and 
father-in-law of Kaiapha. He had formerly been the high 
priest, and in reality had kept, amidst the frequent changes 
in the pontificate, all the authority of the office. He had 
received the high priesthood from the legate Quirinius, in 
the year 7 of our era. He lost his office in the year 14, 
on the accession of Tiberius ; but he retained much im- 
portance. He was still called " high priest," although out 
of office, 889 and was consulted upon all grave questions. 
During fifty years the pontificate remained in his family 
almost without interruption; five of his sons successively 
sustained the dignity, 890 besides Kaiapha, who was his son- 
in-law. His was called the " priestly family," as though 
the priesthood had become hereditary in it. 891 The chief 
offices of the Temple were almost all filled by its members. 892 
Another family, that of Boethus, alternated, it is true, with 
that of Hanan in the pontificate. 893 But the Bo'ethusim, 
whose fortunes were not of very honourable origin, were 
much less esteemed by the pious middle-class. Hanan then 
was in reality the chief of the priestly party. Kaiapha did 
nothing without him; their names were habitually asso- 
ciated, and that of Hanan was always put first. 894 It will be 

888 The Ananus of Josephus: so the Hebrew Johanan became in Greek 
Joannes, or Joannas. 

889 John 18: 15-23; Acts 4: 6. 

890 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1; comp. Jerusalem Talmud, Horayoth, 
3: 5; Tosiphta, Menachoth, 2. 

891 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 3: 1; Wars, 4, 5: 6, 7. Acts 4: 6. 

892 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 3; Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim, 51 a. 

893 Josephus, Antiq., 15, 9: 3; 19, 6: 2, and 8: 1. 

894 Luke 3: 2. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

understood in fact that under this regime of an annual 
pontificate,, changed according to the caprice of the proc- 
urators, an old high priest, who had kept the secret of the 
traditions, had seen many younger than himself succeed 
one another, and had retained sufficient influence to get 
the office delegated to persons who in family rank were 
subordinate to him, must have been a very important per- 
sonage. Like all the Temple aristocracy, he was a Sad- 
ducee, 895 " a sect," says Josephus, " particularly severe in 
its judgments." 896 All his sons were violent persecutors 
also. One of them, called like his father, Hanan, caused 
James, the brother of the Lord, to be stoned, under cir- 
cumstances not unlike those of the death of Jesus. 897 The 
family spirit was haughty, bold, and cruel, 898 it had that 
particular species of proud and sullen wickedness which 
characterises Jewish politics. Thus it is upon Hanan and 
his family that the responsibility of all the acts which fol- 
lowed must rest. It was Hanan, or the party he repre- 
sented, who really put Jesus to death. Hanan was the 
principal actor in the terrible drama, and, far more than 
Kaiapha, far more than Pilate, ought to bear the weight of 
mankind's maledictions. 

It is in the mouth of Kaiapha that the author of the 
fourth Gospel chooses to place the decisive words that led 
to sentence of death on Jesus. 899 It was supposed that the 
high priest possessed a certain gift of prophecy, and his 
declaration thus became an oracle full of profound sig- 
nificance to the Christian community. But such a declara- 
tion, whoever he that pronounced it might be, expressed the 

895 Acts 5: 17. 

896 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1; comp. Megillath Taanith, chap. 4 with 
schol.; Tosiphta, Menachoth, 2. 

897 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1 (there is no good reason to doubt the 
authority). 

898 Ibid. 899 John 11: 49, 50; comp. 18: 14. 

262 



ENEMIES OF JESUS 

feeling of the whole sacerdotal party. This party was 
strongly opposed to popular seditions. It sought to sup- 
press religious enthusiasts, foreseeing, and that rightly, that 
by their impassioned preaching they would bring about the 
total ruin of the nation. Although the excitement created 
by Jesus was in nowise temporal, the priests saw, as the 
final consequence of the agitation, an aggravation of the 
Roman yoke and the overthrow of the Temple, the source 
of their wealth and honours. 900 Certainly the causes which, 
thirty-seven years later, were to effect the ruin of Jeru- 
salem did not proceed from infant Christianity. They 
arose in Jerusalem itself, and not in Galilee. It cannot be 
said, however, that the charge made in this matter by the 
priests was so groundless that we are necessarily to con- 
sider it as insincere. In a general sense, Jesus, had he 
succeeded, would have really caused the ruin of the Jewish 
nation. According to principles, universally admitted by 
all ancient statecraft, Hanan and Kaiapha were thus right 
in saying: "Better the death of one man than the ruin 
of a people ! " In our opinion such reasoning is detestable. 
But it has been that of conservative parties from the begin- 
ning of all human societies. The " party of order (I use 
the expression in its mean and narrow sense) has ever been 
the same. Considering the highest duty of government to 
be the prevention of popular commotions, it believes it per- 
forms a patriotic act when, by judicial murder, it averts 
the tumultuous effusion of blood. With little thought of the 
future, it does not dream that, in declaring war against all 
innovations, it incurs the risk of crushing the idea that is 
one day destined to triumph. The death of Jesus was 
one of the thousand illustrations of this policy. The move- 
ment he led was entirely spiritual, but still it was a move- 
ment; hence the men of order, persuaded that the thing 
900 Johnll:48. 
263 



LIFE OF JESUS 

essential for humanity is to remain quiet, felt themselves 
bound to prevent the new spirit from extending. Never 
was seen a more striking example of how greatly such a 
procedure defeats its own object. Left free, Jesus would 
have worn himself out in a desperate struggle with the 
impossible. The unintelligent hate of his foes decided the 
success of his work, and sealed his divinity. 

The death of Jesus was thus decided in the month of 
February or the beginning of March. 901 But he still es- 
caped for a short time. He withdrew to an obscure town 
called Ephraim or Ephron, in the direction of Bethel, a 
short day's journey from Jerusalem. 902 There he spent a 
few weeks with his disciples, letting the storm pass over. 
But orders for his arrest, the moment he appeared at 
Jerusalem, were given. The feast of the Passover was 
drawing nigh, and it was thought that Jesus, according to 
his custom, would come to celebrate it at Jerusalem. 903 

901 John 11: 53. 

902 John 11:54: comp. 2 Chron. 13: 19; Josephus, Wars, 15, 9: 9; 
Eusebius and Jerome, De situ et nomin. he. hebroe., at the words 'EQpdv 
and ' Etppatfi. It is generally identified with Tayyibeh. 

903 John 11: 55, 56. In the order of events throughout this portion 
we follow the scheme of John. The Synoptics seem ill-informed as to 
the period of time immediately preceding the crucifixion. 



264 



CHAPTER XXIII 

The Last Week 

Jesus in fact set out with his disciples to see once 
more, and for the last time, the unbelieving city. The 
hopes of his followers had grown more and more exalted. 
All believed, in going up to Jerusalem, that the kingdom 
of God was about to be realised there. 904 The fact of men's 
impiety being at its height was regarded as a great sign 
that the consummation was at hand. Their conviction in 
the matter was such, that they were already disputing for 
precedence in the kingdom. 905 This was, it is said, the 
moment chosen by Salome to ask, on behalf of her sons, 
the two seats on the right and left of the Son of man. 906 The 
Master, on the other hand, was beset by serious thoughts. 
Sometimes he permitted a gloomy resentment against his 
enemies to show itself; he related the parable of a noble- 
man, who went to take possession of a kingdom in a far 
country; but no sooner had he departed than his fellow- 
citizens wished to get rid of him. The king returned, and 
commanded those who did not wish him to reign over them 
to be brought before him, and had them all put to death. 907 
At other times Jesus summarily destroyed the illusions of 
the disciples. As they walked along the stony roads to the 
north of Jerusalem, he pensively preceded the group of 
his companions. All gazed on him in silence, with fear 
in their hearts, not daring to question him. Already, on 
different occasions, he had spoken to them of his future 

804 Lukel9:ll. 

905 Luke 22: 24-26. 

906 Matt. 20: 20-23; Mark 10: 35-40. 

907 Luke 19: 12-27. 

265 



LIFE OF JESUS 

sufferings, and they had listened to him reluctantly. 908 At 
last he spoke, and, no longer concealing his presentiments, 
told them of his approaching end. 909 There was great sor- 
row in the whole company. The disciples had been ex- 
pecting to see the sign soon appear in the clouds. The 
inaugural cry of the kingdom of God: " Blessed is he that 
cometh in the name of the Lord," 910 already in joyous ac- 
cents resounded in their ears. The fearful prospect he 
unfolded troubled them. At every step of the fatal road 
the kingdom of God drew nearer or receded farther in the 
mirage of their dreams. As to Jesus, he grew confirmed in 
the belief that he was about to die, but that his death would 
save the world. 911 The misunderstanding between him and 
his disciples became deeper at every moment. 

The custom was to come to Jerusalem several days be- 
fore the Passover, in order to prepare for it. Jesus arrived 
late, and for a moment his enemies thought their hope of 
seizing him was frustrated. 912 On the sixth day before the 
feast (Saturday, 8th of Nisan, 913 or 28th of March) he at 
last reached Bethany. He entered, according to his habit, 
the house of Martha and Mary, or of Simon the leper. He 
was given a great reception. There was a dinner at Simon 
the leper's, 914 at which many persons assembled, attracted 
by the desire of seeing the new prophet, and also, it is 
said, of seeing the Lazarus of whom for the last few days 
so many things had been related. It may be that Simon 
the leper, seated at table, already passed as being the al- 

908 Matt. 16: 21-23; Mark 8: 31-33. 

909 Matt. 20: 17-19; Mark 10: 32-34; Luke 0: 18-22, 31. 

910 Matt. 23: 39; Luke 13:35. 

911 Matt. 20:28. 912 John 11: 56. 

913 The Passover was kept o;i the 14th of the month Nisan, which 
in the year 33 began on a Saturday, making the 14th fall on Friday; 
but the uncertainty of the Jewish calendar renders all calculation doubt- 
ful. See Mem. de VAcad. des Inscr. etc. 23, pt. 2, p. 367 (new series). 

914 Matt. 26: 6; Mark 14: 3; comp. Luke 7: 40, 43, 44. 

266 



THE LAST WEEK 

leged resuscitated man, and attracted attention. Martha 
waited on the guests according to her custom. 915 Apparently 
it was sought, by an increased display of respect, to con- 
quer the indifference of the public, and to assert the high 
dignity of their guest. Mary, in order to make the event 
more of a festival, entered during dinner, bearing a vase of 
perfume which she poured upon the feet of Jesus. She 
then broke the vase in accordance with an old custom of 
breaking the vessel that had been employed in the enter- 
tainment of a stranger of distinction. 916 Then, testifying 
her worship to unparalleled excess, she prostrated herself 
at the feet of her Master and wiped them with her long 
hair. 917 All the house was filled with the sweet odour of the 
perfume, to the great delight of every one save the avari- 
cious Judas of Kerioth. Considering the thrifty habits of 
the community, this was certainly prodigality. The greedy 
treasurer immediately calculated for how much the per- 
fume might have been sold, and what it would have realised 
for the poor. This not very affectionate feeling, which 
seemed to place something above Jesus, dissatisfied the 
latter. He liked to be honoured, for honours served his 
purpose and strengthened his title of Son of David. There- 
fore when they spoke to him of the poor, he replied rather 
sharply: "Ye have the poor always with you; but me ye 
have not always." And, exalting himself, he promised im- 
mortality to the woman who at that critical moment gave 
him a token of love. 918 

915 This would not be unlikely even if it were not in her own house. 
Such service at another's board, from a near friend, or relative, is common 
in the East. 

916 I have seen the same thing done at Sour. 

917 We here call to mind the attitude of the guests, reclining on the 
triclinium, or divan, with their feet on their own level, not hid under 
the table. 

918 Matt. 26: 6-13; Mark 14: 3-9; John 11: 2, and 12: 2-8; como. 
Luke 7: 36-50. 

267 



LIFE OF JESUS 

The next day (Sunday, 9th of Nisan) Jesus descended 
from Bethany to Jerusalem. 919 When, at the bend of the 
road on the summit of the Mount of Olives, he saw the city 
lying before him, it is said he wept over it, and addressed 
to it a last appeal. 920 On the slope of the mountain, near 
the suburb, chiefly inhabited by priests, which was called 
Bethphage, 921 he felt a momentary human pleasure. 922 His 
arrival was noised abroad. The Galileans who had come 
to the feast were highly elated by it, and prepared a little 
triumph for him. An ass was brought to him, followed, 
according to custom, by its colt. 923 The Galileans laid their 
finest clothes upon the back of the humble animal as saddle- 
cloths, and seated him thereon, while others spread their 
garments upon the road, and strewed it with green branches. 
The multitude which preceded and followed him, carrying 
palms, cried: " Hosanna to the son of David! Blessed is 
he that cometh in the name of the Lord ! " Some even gave 
him the title of king of Israel. 924 " Master, rebuke thy 
disciples," said the Pharisees to him. " I tell you that if 
these shall hold their peace, the stones will cry out," 
answered Jesus, and entered into the city. 

The Hierosolymites, who scarcely knew him, asked who 

919 John 12: 12. 

920 Luke 19: 41-44 ("If thou hadst known," etc.). 

921 Matt. 21: 1; Mark 11: 1; Luke 19: 29. Mishna, Menachoth, 11: 2. 
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 14 b; Pesachim, 63 b, 91 a; Sota, 45 a; 
Baba Metsia, 88 a; Menachoth, 78 b, Sifra, 104 b. Eusebius and 
Jerome, De situ, etc. (ed. of Martianay), 2: 442. Jer. Epitaph. Paula (4: 
676); comm. in Matt. 21: 1 (4: 94); Lex. grcec. nom. etc. (2: 121, 122). 

922 Matt. 21: 1-9; Mark 11: 1-10; Luke 19: 29-36; John 12: 12-16. 
The comparison with Zech. 9: 9 throws a slight doubt upon this inci- 
dent: the triumphal entrance riding upon an ass was a messianic token. 
Comp. Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 98 b; Midrash, Bereschith 
rabba, 98; Midrash, Koheleth, 1: 9. 

923 ^phis p e tty incident may have arisen from a misunderstanding of 
the passage in Zechariah, owing to the ignorance of the New Testament 
writers as to the rules of Hebrew parallelism. Comp. John 19: 24. 

924 Luke 19: 38; John 12: 13. 

268 



THE LAST WEEK 

he was : " It is Jesus, the prophet of Nazareth, in Galilee/' 
was the reply. Jerusalem was a city of about 50,000 
souls. 925 A trifling event, such as the entrance of a stranger, 
however little celebrated he might be, or the arrival of a 
band of provincials, or a movement of people to the avenues 
of the city, could not fail, under ordinary circumstances, to 
be quickly noised about. But during seasons of festival 
the confusion was extreme. 926 Jerusalem at such times was 
given over to strangers; and it was amongst the latter that 
the excitement appears to have been highest. Some Greek- 
speaking proselytes who had come to the feast had their 
curiosity stimulated, and wished to see Jesus. They ad- 
dressed themselves to his disciples; but the result of the 
interview is not known. 927 Jesus, as his habit was, went 
to pass the night at his beloved village of Bethany. 928 On 
the three following days (Monday, Tuesday, and Wednes- 
day) he regularly descended to Jerusalem, returning after 
sunset either to Bethany or to the farms on the wes- 
tern side of the Mount of Olives, where he had many 
friends. 929 

During these last days a deep sadness appears to have 
filled the soul of Jesus, which was generally so joyous and 
serene. All the narratives agree in relating that before 
his arrest he went through a brief phase of misgiving and 
trouble, a kind of agony in anticipation. According to some, 

925 The number one hundred and twenty thousand (Hecatseus in 
Josephus, c. Ap. 1: 22) seems too great. Cicero apparently slurs it as a 
petty fortress [in the epithet Hierosolymarius applied to Pompey]: Ad 
Ait. 2: 9. The old walls, however described, do not admit a population 
fourfold the present, which is less than fifteen thousand. See Robinson, 
Bibl. Res. 1:421, 2d ed.; Fergusson, Topography of Jerusalem, 51; 
Foster, Syria and Palestine. 82. 

926 Josephus, Wars, 2, 14: 3; 6, 9: 3. 

927 John 12: 20-22. 

928 Matt. 21: 17; Mark 11: 11. 

929 Matt. 21: 17, 18; Mark 11: 11, 12, 19; Luke 21: 37, 38. 

269 



LIFE OF JESUS 

he suddenly exclaimed, " Now is my soul troubled. . . . 
Father, save me from this hour." 93 ° It was believed that a 
voice from heaven was heard at that moment: others said 
that an angel came to console him. 931 According to one 
widely-spread version, the incident occurred in the garden 
of Gethsemane. Jesus, it was said, went about a stone's 
throw from his sleeping disciples, taking with him only 
Cephas and the two sons of Zebedee. Then he fell on his 
face and prayed. His soul was sick even unto death; a 
terrible anguish weighed him down; but resignation to the 
divine will sustained him. 932 This scene, by reason of the 
instinctive art which regulated the compilation of the 
Synoptics, and often led them to follow rules of adapta- 
bility and effect in the arrangement of the narrative, is 
stated as having happened on the last night of the life of 
Jesus, and at the moment of his arrest. Were this version 
the true one, we should scarcely understand why John, who 
had been the immediate witness of so touching an episode, 
should not have spoken of it to his disciples, and that the 
author of the fourth Gospel, in the very circumstantial nar- 
rative which he gives of the evening of the Thursday, should 
have omitted mention of it. 933 

All that one can safely say is, that, during his last days, 
the enormous weight of the mission he had accepted bore 
cruelly upon Jesus. For a moment human nature asserted 
itself. It may be that he began to have doubts about his 
work. Terror and hesitation seized him and cast him into 

930 John 12: 27-32. The lofty tone of this evangelist and his exclu- 
sive attention to the divine office of Jesus, naturally effaced from the 
narrative those traits of human weakness related by the Synoptics. 

931 Luke 22: 43; John 12: 28, 29. 

932 Matt. 26: 36-41; Mark 14: 32-38; Luke 22; 39^6. 

933 This would be the less intelligible, since the fourth evangelist makes 
it a point to put in relief circumstances personal to the Apostle John, or 
those which he alone had witnessed (1: 35-37; 13: 23-26; 18: 15-18; 19: 
25-27, 35; 20: 2-5; 21: 20-25). 

270 



THE LAST WEEK 

a state of exhaustion worse than death itself. He who has 
sacrificed his repose and the legitimate rewards of life to a 
great idea ever experiences a feeling of revulsion when the 
image of death presents itself for the first time to him, and 
seeks to persuade him that all has been in vain. Perhaps 
some of those touching memories preserved by the strong- 
est souls, and at times sharp as a sword, came to him at 
this moment. Did he remember the clear fountains of Gali- 
lee, where he might have found refreshment; the vine and 
the fig-tree under which he might have rested, the young 
maidens who perhaps might have consented to love him? 
Did he curse the cruel destiny which had denied him the 
joys granted to all others? Did he regret his too lofty 
nature, and, victim of his greatness, mourn that he had not 
remained a simple workman in Nazareth? We know not. 
For all these inward troubles were evidently a sealed 
chapter to his disciples. They understood nothing of them, 
and by pimple conjectures supplied what in their Master's 
great soul was obscure to them. It is at least certain that 
his divine nature soon regained the supremacy. He might 
still have escaped death; but he would not. Love of his 
work sustained him. He was willing to drink the cup to 
its dregs. Henceforth we behold Jesus entirely himself 
and with his character unclouded. The subtleties of the 
controversialist, the credulity of the thaumaturgist and ex- 
orcist are forgotten. There remains but the incomparable 
hero of the Passion, the founder of the rights of free con- 
science, the complete exemplar whom all suffering souls 
will contemplate to fortify and to console themselves. 

The triumph of Bethphage — the audacity of the provin- 
cial folk in celebrating the advent of their Messiah-King 
at the very gates of Jerusalem — completed the exasperation 
of the Pharisees and the Temple aristocracy. Another 
council was held on the Wednesday (12th of Nisan) in the 
271 



LIFE OF JESUS 

house of Joseph Kaiapha. 934 The immediate arrest of Jesus 
was resolved upon. A great idea of order and conservative 
policy governed all their plans. The question was how a 
scene might be avoided. As the feast of the Passover, 
which in that year began on the Friday evening, was a time 
of bustle and excitement, it was resolved to anticipate it. 
Jesus being popular/ 35 they feared an outbreak. Although 
it was customary to put in relief the solemnities to which 
the whole nation gathered by the execution of those rebel- 
lious to priestly authority — a sort of auto-da-fe designed to 
impress the people with religious terror 936 — it was probably 
arranged that such executions should not fall on festal 
days. 937 The arrest was therefore decided for the next 
day, Thursday. It was resolved also not to apprehend 
him in the Temple, where he came every day, 938 but to ob- 
serve his habits, that he might be seized in some quiet spot. 
The agents of the priests sounded his disciples, in the hope 
of obtaining useful information from their weakness or 
simplicity. They found what they sought in Judas of 
Kerioth. This wretch, from motives impossible to explain, 
betrayed his Master, gave all the necessary information, 
and even undertook himself (although such an excess of 
vileness is scarcely credible) to guide the troop which was 
to effect the arrest. The remembrance of horror which the 
folly or wickedness of the man has left in Christian tradi- 
tion must have given rise to some exaggeration on this point. 
Judas until now had been a disciple like the others ; he even 
had the title of apostle; and he had performed miracles 
and driven out demons. Legend, which always uses strong 

934 Matt. 26: 1-5. Mark 14: 1, 2. Luke 22: 1, 2. 

935 Matt. 21: 46. 

936 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 11: 4; Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 89 a (comp. 
Acts 12: 3-5). 

937 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 4: 1. 

938 Matt. 26: 55. 

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THE LAST WEEK 

and decisive language, describes the occupants of the room 
in which the last supper was taken as eleven saints and one 
reprobate. Reality does not proceed by such absolute cate- 
gories. Avarice, which the Synoptics give as the motive of 
the crime in question, does not suffice to explain it. It would 
be very singular for a man who kept the purse, and knew 
what he would lose by the death of his chief, to give up 
the profits of his position 939 in exchange for a very small 
I sum of money. 940 Had the self-love of Judas been wounded 
by the rebuke he had received at the dinner at Bethany? 
Even this would not explain his conduct. The fourth 
evangelist would have us look upon him as a thief, an un- 
believer from the first, 941 but for this there is no probability. 
His action might rather be ascribed to some feeling of 
jealousy or dissension amongst the disciples. The peculiar 
hatred towards Judas 942 to be remarked in the Gospel at- 
tributed to John confirms this hypothesis. Less pure in 
heart than the others, Judas, from the nature of his office, 
must have unconsciously grown narrow-minded. By a habit 
characteristic of men engaged in active duties, he had come 
to consider the interests of the treasury as superior even to 
those of the work which it was intended to serve. The 
treasurer must have slain the apostle. The murmurs which 
escaped him at Bethany seem to imply that occasionally he 
thought the Master cost his spiritual family too dear. No 
doubt this petty economy of his had at many other times 
caused friction in the little community. 

Without denying that Judas of Kerioth may have helped 
to bring about the arrest of his Master, we still believe that 
the curses heaped upon him are somewhat unjust. In his 

939 John 12: 6. 

940 The fourth Gospel does not even allude to pay. The "thirty 
pieces of silver" of the Synoptics are taken from Zecn. 11: 12, 13. 

941 John 6: 65; 12:6. 

942 John 6: 65, 71, 72; 12: 6; 13: 2, 27-30. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

action there was perhaps more awkwardness than perversity. 
The moral conscience of the man of the people is quick 
and correct, but unstable and inconsistent. It is unable to 
resist the impulse of the moment. The secret societies of 
the republican party had within them much earnestness and 
sincerity, and yet informers were very numerous among 
them. A trifling spite sufficed to turn a partisan into a 
traitor. But if foolish desire for a few pieces of silver 
turned the head of poor Judas, he does not appear to have 
lost moral feeling altogether, since, when he had seen the 
consequences of his sin, he repented, 943 and, it is said, killed 
himself. 

Each moment of this period is solemn, and counts more 
than whole ages in the history of humanity. We have 
arrived at Thursday, 13th of Nisan (2nd of April). On 
the evening of the next day the festival of the Passover 
began with the feast in which the Paschal lamb was eaten. 
The festival continued for seven days, during which un- 
leavened bread was eaten. The first and the last of these 
seven days were peculiarly solemn in character. The dis- 
ciples were already engaged in preparing for the feast. 944 
As to Jesus, there is reason to believe that he was aware 
of the treachery of Judas, and suspected the fate that 
awaited him. In the evening he took his last repast with 
his disciples. It was not the ritual feast of the Passover, 
as was afterwards supposed, owing to an error of a day in 
reckoning, 945 but from the primitive church this supper of 
the Thursday was the true Passover, the seal of the new 

943 Matt. 27: 3-5. 

944 Matt. 26: 17-19; Mark 14: 12-16; Luke 22: 7-13; John 13: 29. 

945 This is the view of the Synoptics (Matt. 26: 17; Mark 14: 12; Luke 
22: 7-15), and consequently of Justin (Tryph. 17, 88, 97, 100, 111). 
The fourth Gospel, on the contrary, formally assumes that Jesus died 
on the very day the lamb was eaten (13: 1, 2, 29; 18: 28; 19: 14, 31). The 
Talmud (surely a weak authority on such a point) also makes Jesus 

274 



THE LAST WEEK 

covenant. Every disciple attached his dearest memories to 
it; and numerous touching traits of the Master which each 
one preserved were associated with this repast, which be- 
came the corner-stone of Christian piety, and the starting- 
point of its most fruitful institutions. 

There can be no doubt indeed that the tender love which 
filled the heart of Jesus for the little church around him 
overflowed at this moment. 946 His strong and serene soul 
grew light, even under the weight of the gloomy forebod- 
ings which beset him. He had a word for each of his 
friends; two of them especially, John and Peter, were the 
objects of tender marks of attachment. John was reclining 
on the divan by the side of Jesus, with his head resting 
upon the Master's breast. 947 Towards the close of the re- 
past, the secret which weighed upon the heart of Jesus 
almost escaped him: he said, " Verily, I say unto you, that 
one of you shall betray me." 948 To these simple men it was 
a moment of anguish; they looked upon one another, and 
each questioned himself. Judas was present; possibly 
Jesus, who for some time had had reason to suspect him, 
sought by this remark to elicit from his looks or his em- 
die "the day before the Passover" (Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 
43 a, 67 a). A serious objection to this opinion is that late in the second 
century the churches of Asia Minor, professing a doctrine on the Pass- 
over [Easter], a doctrine that seems to contradict the view of the fourth 
Gospel, appealed to the authority of the Apostle John himself and his 
disciples in support of a doctrine consenting with the account of the 
Synoptics. (Polycrates in Euseb. Hist. 5: 34: comp. Chron. pasc. p. 6 
et seq. y ed., Du Cange.) But the question is very obscure. John and his 
disciples may have kept the Passover, like all the primitive Apostolic 
school, on the 14th of Nisan, not because they believed that Jesus had 
eaten the lamb on that day, but because they believed that he, the true 
paschal lamb (see John 1: 29, and 19: 36, with Rev. 5: 6), had been slain 
on that day. 

946 John 13: and the succeeding chapters. 

947 John 13: 23; Polycrates in Euseb. Hist. 5: 24. 

948 Matt. 13: 21-25; Mark 14: 18-21; Luke 22: 21-23; John 13: 21-30, 
and 21: 29. 

275 



LIFE OF JESUS 

barrassed manner a confession of his sin. But the treach- 
erous disciple did not lose countenance; he even dared, it 
is said, to ask with the others: " Is it I, Master? " 

Meanwhile Peter's good and upright soul was in torment. 
With a sign he prompted John to endeavour to ascertain of 
whom the Master was speaking. John, who could converse 
with Jesus without being overheard, asked him the meaning 
of the enigma. Jesus having only suspicions, did not wish 
to give any name; he only told John to watch well him to 
whom he was going to offer a piece of bread dipped in 
the sauce. At the same time he soaked the bread and 
offered it to Judas. 949 John and Peter alone had cognizance 
of the fact. Jesus addressed to Judas a few words which 
contained a bitter reproach, but were not understood 
by those present. They thought that Jesus was simply 
giving him orders for the morrow's feast, and he went 
out.* 50 

At the time, this repast did not impress any one; and, 
apart from the apprehensions confided by the Master to his 
disciples, who only half understood them, nothing extraor- 
dinary happened. But after the death of Jesus a singularly 
solemn significance was attached to this evening, and the 
imagination of believers clad it with a colouring of sweet 
mysticism. The last hours of a dear friend are those we 
best remember. By an inevitable illusion, we attribute to 
the conversations we have then had with him a meaning 
which only death gives them; into a few hours we concen- 
trate the memories of many years. The majority of the 
disciples saw their Master no more after the supper of 
which we have just spoken. It was the farewell banquet. 

949 In the East, as a mark of favour to a guest, the master of the feast 
gives him, once or twice during the repast, morsels of food which he 
compounds and seasons as he will. 

950 John 13: 21-30, which relieves the improbabilities of the Synoptic 
account. 

276 



THE LAST WEEK 

At this rneal, as at many others/ 51 Jesus practised his 
mysterious rite of the breaking of bread. As it was an 
early belief in the church that the repast in question took 
place on the day of the Passover, and was the Paschal 
feast, the idea was naturally conceived that the Eucharistic 
institution was founded at this supreme moment. Starting 
from the hypothesis that Jesus knew beforehand the precise 
moment of his death, the disciples were necessarily led to 
suppose that he reserved a number of important acts for 
his last hours. As moreover one of the fundamental ideas 
of the first Christians was that the death of Jesus had been 
a sacrifice, superseding all those of the ancient Law, the 
" Last Supper," 952 which was supposed to have taken place 
once for all on the eve of the Passion, became the one su- 
preme sacrifice — the act which constituted the new covenant 
— the sign of the blood shed for the salvation of all men. 
The bread and wine, brought into relation with death itself, 
were thus the image of the new Testament sealed by Jesus 
with his sufferings — the commemoration of the sacrifice of 
Christ until his advent. 953 

At a very early date this mystery was embodied in a 
small sacramental narrative, which we possess under four 
forms 954 with a strong mutual resemblance. The fourth 
evangelist, preoccupied with Eucharistic ideas, 955 who re- 
lates the Last Supper with so much prolixity, connecting 
with it so many incidents and discourses, 956 is not acquainted 
with this narrative. This is a proof that in the sect whose 
tradition he represents the Eucharistic institution was not 
regarded as a special feature of the Lord's Supper. For 

951 Luke 24: SO, 31, 35, represents the breaking of bread as a character- 
istic act of Jesus (comp. pp. 218-223). 

952 Luke 22: 20. 

953 1 Cor. 11: 26. 

95i Matt. 26: 26-28; Mark 14: 22-24; Luke 22: 19-21; 1 Cor. 11: 
23-25. 955 Chap. 6. 956 Chaps. 13-17. 

277 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the fourth evangelist the rite of the Last Supper is the 
washing of feet. It is probable that in certain primitive 
Christian families this latter rite obtained an importance 
which it has since lost. 957 No doubt Jesus had on some 
occasions practised it to give his disciples a lesson in 
brotherly humility. It was connected with the eve of his 
death, by reason of the tendency to group round the Last 
Supper all the great moral and ritual recommendations of 
Jesus. 

A lofty feeling of love, of concord, of charity, and of 
mutual deference animated moreover the memories which 
were cherished of the last hours of Jesus. 958 It is always 
the unity of his Church, constituted by him or by his Spirit, 
which is the soul of the symbols and discourses attributed 
by Christian tradition to these hallowed moments. " A 
new commandment I give unto you," said he, " that ye love 
one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one 
another. By this shall all men know that ye are my dis- 
ciples, if ye have love one to another." 959 Even at this last 
moment some rivalries and struggles for precedence 
arose. 960 Jesus remarked that if he, the Master, had been 
in the midst of his disciples as their servant, how much 
more ought they to submit themselves one to another. Ac- 
cording to some, in drinking the wine, he said, " I will not 
drink from henceforth of this fruit of the vine until that 
day when I drink it new with you in my Father's king- 

957 John 13: 14, 15; comp. Matt. 26: 26-30; Luke 22: 19-20. 

958 John 13-17. The discourses contained in these chapters cannot 
be taken as historical. They are full of turns of thought and expressions 
which are not at all in the manner of Jesus' own discourses, but, on the 
contrary, fall exactly into the habitual style of the writings ascribed to 
John. Thus the expression "little children" as a form of address (John 
13: 33) is very frequent in the first epistle bearing the name of John, 
but is never heard from the lips of Jesus. 

959 John 13: 33-35; 15: 12-17. 

960 Luke 22: 24-27: comp. John 13: 4-11. 

278 



THE LAST WEEK 

dom." 961 According to others, he promised them soon a 
heavenly feast, where they would be seated on thrones by 
his side. 962 

It seems as though, towards the end of the evenings the 
forebodings of Jesus took possession of the disciples also. 
All felt that a grave peril threatened the Master, and that 
a crisis was at hand. For a moment Jesus thought of pre- 
cautions^ and spoke of swords. There were two in the com- 
pany. " It is enough/' said he. 963 He did not follow this 
idea out however, seeing clearly that timid provincials 
would not stand before the armed force of the great 
powers of Jerusalem. Cephas, full of enthusiasm, and feel- 
ing sure of hiroself, swore that he would go with him to 
prison and to death. Jesus, with his usual acuteness, ex- 
pressed doubts about him. According to a tradition, which 
probably proceeded from Peter himself, Jesus declared that 
Peter would be found wanting before the crowing of the 
cock. 964 All, like Cephas, vowed that they would not fail 
him. 

981 Matt. 31: 29; Mark 14: 25; Luke 22: 18. 

962 Luke 22: 29, 30. 

963 Luke 22: 36-38. 

964 Matt. 26: 31-35; Mark 14: 29-31; Luke 22: 31-33; John 13: 36-38. 



279 



CHAPTER XXIV 

The Arrest and Trial of Jesus 

Night had fallen 965 when they left the room. 966 Jesus, as 
was his custom, passed through the valley of Kedron; and, 
accompanied by his disciples, went into the garden of 
Gethsemane, at the foot of the Mount of Olives, 967 where 
he sat down. Overawing his friends by his majesty, he 
watched and prayed. They were sleeping near him, when 
suddenly an armed troop appeared carrying lighted torches. 
It was the guards of the Temple, armed with staves, a kind 
of police force which the priests had been allowed to main- 
tain. They were supported by a detachment of Roman 
soldiers with their swords. The warrant of arrest emanated 
from the high priest and the Sanhedrim. 968 Judas, knowing 
the habits of Jesus, had pointed out this place as being 
that where he might be most easily surprised, and, 
according to the unanimous tradition of the earliest 
times, himself accompanied the detachment. 969 By some 
accounts he carried his hateful conduct so far as to make 
a kiss the sign of his betrayal. 970 However this may be, 
it is certain that there was some attempt at resistance on 
the part of the disciples. 971 Peter, it is said, drew his 

985 Johnl3:30. 

966 The singing of a hymn, related in Matt. 26: 30, Mark 14: 26, and 
Justin's Trypho, 106, accords with the Synoptic view that the Last 
Supper was the Passover feast. Psalms were sung both before and 
after this feast: see Babylonian Talmud, Pesachim, 9: 3, fol. 118 a. 

967 Matt. 26: 36; Mark 14: 32; Luke 22: 39; John 18: 1, 2. 

968 Matt. 26: 47; Mark 14: 43; John 18: 3, 12. 

969 Ibid.; also Luke 22: 47; Acts 1: 16. 1 Cor. 11: 23 seems to imply it. 

970 The Synoptic tradition. In the fourth Gospel Jesus is said to have 
voluntarily surrendered himself (John 18: 4-8). 

971 Here the several traditions are in accord. 

280 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

sword, and wounded the ear of Malchus, one of the ser- 
vants of the high priest. 972 Jesus made this opposition cease, 
and gave himself up to the soldiers. Weak and incapable 
of effective resistance, especially against authorities with 
so much prestige, the disciples took to flight and dispersed; 
Peter and John alone did not lose sight of their Master. 
Another young man — perhaps Mark — followed him, cov- 
ered with a light garment. It was sought to arrest him, 
but the young man fled, leaving his tunic in the hands of 
the officers. 973 

The course which the priests had determined to take 
against Jesus was in perfect conformity with the established 
law. The procedure against the " corrupter " (mesith) 
who seeks to corrupt purity of religion is explained in the 
Talmud, with details, the naive impudence of which pro- 
vokes a smile. A judicial ambush is laid down as an es- 
sential part of the criminal's examination. When a man 
was accused of being a " corrupter," two witnesses were 
suborned who were hidden behind a partition; and it was 
then arranged that the accused should be brought into an 
adjoining room, where he could be heard by these two wit- 
nesses without his perceiving them. Two candles were 
lighted near him, so that it might be conclusively proved 
that the witnesses "saw him." 974 He was then forced to re- 
peat his blasphemy, and urged to retract it. If he persisted 
in it, the witnesses who had heard him took him to the tribu- 
nal, and he was stoned to death. The Talmud adds that 
Jesus was treated in this way; that he was condemned on 
the testimony of two witnesses who had been suborned, and 

872 Matt. 26: 51, 52; Mark 14: 47; Luke 22: 50, 51; John 18: 10. 
(Luke relates that Jesus miraculously healed the severed ear.) 

973 Mark 14: 51, 52. Mark (who alone tells the incident) lived at 
Jerusalem (Acts 12: 12). 

974 On a criminal charge, only eyewitnesses were admitted: Mishna, 
Sanhedrin, 4: 5. 

281 



LIFE OF JESUS 

that the crime of " corruption " is moreover the only one 
for which witnesses are thus prepared. 975 

We learn indeed from the disciples of Jesus that the 
crime with which their Master was charged was that of 
" corruption " ; 976 and, apart from some trifling details, 
fruits of the rabbinical imagination, the Gospel narrative 
exactly corresponds with the procedure described in the 
Talmud. The scheme of the enemies of Jesus was to con- 
vict him, by the testimony of witnesses and by his own 
avowals, of blasphemy and outrage on the Mosaic religion, 
to condemn him to death according to law, and then to have 
the sentence confirmed by Pilate. The whole sacerdotal 
authority, as we have already seen, was practically in the 
hands of Hanan. The warrant of arrest probably came 
from him. It was before this powerful man that Jesus 
was brought in the first instance. 977 Hanan examined him 
as to his doctrine and his disciples. Jesus, with just pride, 
declined to enter into long explanations. He referred 
Hanan to his teachings, which had been public; he declared 
that he had never held any secret doctrine; and he asked 
the ex-high priest to question those who had listened to 
him. This response was perfectly natural; but the ex- 
aggerated respect with which the old priest was surrounded 
made it seem audacious, and one of the bystanders is said 
to have replied to it by a blow. 

Peter and John had followed their Master to the abode 
of Hanan. John, who was known in the house, was ad- 
mitted without difficulty; but Peter was stopped at the 
entrance, and John had to beg the porter to let him pass 

975 Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, 14: 16; Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 
43 a, 67 a (comp. Schabbath, 104 b). 

978 Matt. 27: 63; John 7: 12, 47. The Greek verb is irXavav "to lead 
astray" (as a false guide). 

977 John 18: 13, 24. This circumstance, found only in the fourth 
Gospel, is a strong proof of its historical value. 

282 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

through. The night was cold. Peter remained in the ante- 
chamber, and approached a brasier, round which the ser- 
vants were warming themselves. He was quickly recog- 
nised as a disciple of the accused. The unfortunate man, 
betrayed by his Galilean accent, and pestered with ques- 
tions by the servants, one of whom, a kinsman of Malchus, 
had seen him at Gethsemane, thrice denied that he had ever 
had anything to do with Jesus. He thought that Jesus 
could not hear him, and never imagined that this dis- 
simulated cowardice was exceedingly dishonourable. But 
his better nature soon revealed to him the sin he had com- 
mitted. A fortuitous circumstance, the crowing of the 
cock, recalled to him a remark that Jesus had made. 
Touched to the heart, he went out and wept bitterly. 978 

Hanan, although the real author of the judicial murder 
about to be done, had no power to pronounce sentence 
on Jesus ; he sent him to his son-in-law, Kai'apha, who bore 
the official title. This man, the blind instrument of his 
father-in-law, naturally had to ratify all that had been 
done. The Sanhedrim was assembled at his house. 979 The 
inquiry began; and several witnesses, prepared beforehand 
in accordance with the inquisitorial process described in 
the Talmud, appeared before the tribunal. The fatal words 
which Jesus had actually uttered : "I am able to destroy 
the Temple of God and to build it in three days" (Matt. 26: 
61), were reported by two witnesses. To blaspheme the 
Temple of God was, in Jewish law, to blaspheme God him- 
self. 980 Jesus remained silent, and declined to explain the 
incriminating speech. If one version is to be believed, the 
high priest then adj ured him to say if he were the Messiah ; 

978 Matt. 26: 69-75; Mark 14: 66-72; Luke 22: 55-62; John 18: 15-18, 
25-27. 

979 Matt. 26: 57; Mark 4: 53; Luke 22: 66. 

980 Matt. 23: 16-22. 

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LIFE OF JESUS 

Jesus avowed it, and even proclaimed before the assembly 
the near approach of his heavenly reign. 9S1 The courage of 
Jesus in his resolve to die renders this statement super- 
fluous. It is more probable that here, as when before 
Hanan, he kept silence. This was his general rule of con- 
duct during his last hours. The sentence was already de- 
cided, and they only sought for pretexts. Jesus felt this, 
and did not attempt a useless defence. From the point 
of view of orthodox Judaism, he truly was a blasphemer, 
a destroyer of the established worship; and these crimes 
were punished by the law with death. 982 With one voice, 
the assembly declared him guilty of a capital crime. The 
members of the council who secretly leaned to him were 
absent or refrained from voting. 983 The frivolity character- 
istic of long-established aristocracy did not permit the 
judges to reflect much on the consequences of the sentence 
they had passed. Human life was at that time very lightly 
sacrificed; doubtless the members of the Sanhedrim did not 
dream that their sons would have to render account to an 
enraged posterity for the condemnation delivered with such 
careless disdain. 

The Sanhedrim had not the right to carry out a sentence 
of death. 984 But in the confusion of powers which then 
reigned in Judaea, Jesus was none the less condemned from 
that moment. He remained for the rest of the night ex- 
posed to the ill-treatment of an infamous pack of servants, 
who spared him no indignity. 985 

In the morning the chief priests and the elders met once 

081 Matt. 26: 64; Mark 14: 62; Luke 22: 69. The fourth Gospel 
speaks of no such incident. 

982 Levit. 24: 14-16; Deut. 13: 1-5. 

883 Luke 23: 50, 51. 

984 John 18: 31; Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1; Jerusalem Talmud, San- 

J I CU.T1 H 1 * 4. 

886 Matt. 26: 67, 68; Mark 14: 65; Luke 22: 63-65. 
284 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

more. 986 The point was to get Pilate to ratify the sentence 
pronounced by the Sanhedrim, which, since the Roman 
occupation, was no longer sufficient. The procurator was 
not invested, like the imperial legate, with the disposal of 
life and death. But Jesus was not a Roman citizen; the 
governor's authorisation sufficed for the sentence passed on 
him being allowed to take its course. As always happens, 
when a political people subdues a nation in which the civil 
and the religious law are confounded, the Romans had 
been induced to lend the Jewish law a kind of official sup- 
port. The Roman law did not apply to Jews. The latter 
remained under the canonical law which we find recorded 
in the Talmud, just as the Arabs in Algeria are still 
governed by the code of Islam. Thus, although neutral in 
religion, the Romans very often sanctioned penalties in- 
flicted for religious offences. The situation was almost like 
that of the holy cities of India under English rule, or rather 
that which would be the state of Damascus, were Syria 
conquered by a European nation. Josephus asserts, though 
his statement may certainly be doubted, that if a Roman 
trespassed beyond the pillars which bore inscriptions for- 
bidding pagans to go further, the Romans themselves would 
have delivered him over to the Jews to be put to death. 987 
The agents of the priests therefore bound Jesus and led 
him to the Praetorium, which had once been the palace of 
Herod, 988 near the Tower of Antonia. 989 It was the morn- 
ing of the day on which the Paschal lamb had to be eaten 
(Friday, the 14th of Nisan, our 3rd of April). The Jews 
would have been defiled by entering the judgment-hall, and 
would have been unable to share in the sacred feast. They 

986 Matt. 27: 1; Mark 15: 1; Luke 22: 66, and 23: 1; John 18: 28. 

987 Josephns, Antiq., 15, 9: 5; Wars, 6, 2: 4. 

988 pjjii^ Legatio ad Caium, 38; Josephus, Wars, 2, 14: 8, 

989 Where now [ s th e palace of the governor of Jerusalem. 

285 



LIFE OF JESUS 

accordingly remained outside. 990 Pilate, being informed of 
their presence, ascended the bema, 991 or tribunal, situated in 
the open air, 992 at the place called Gabbatha, or in Greek, 
AiOoo-rpoiTov (pavement) on account of the pavement which 
covered the ground. 

He had scarcely been informed of the accusation before 
he showed his annoyance at being mixed up in the matter. 993 
He then shut himself up in the Praetorium with Jesus. 
There a conversation took place, the precise details of 
which are lost, no witness having been able to report it to 
the disciples, but the tenor of which seems to have been 
well divined by the fourth evangelist. His narrative at 
least is in perfect accordance with what history tells us of 
the mutual position of the two interlocutors. 

The procurator Pontius, surnamed Pilate, no doubt be- 
cause of the pilum, or javelin of honour, with which he or 
one of his ancestors was decorated, 994 had not hitherto been 
in contact with the new sect. Indifferent to the internal 
quarrels of the Jews, he saw in all these sectarian move- 
ments nothing but the results of intemperate imaginations 
and disordered brains. In general he did not like the Jews, 
but the Jews detested him still more. They considered 
him hard, scornful, and passionate, and accused him of im- 
probable crimes. 995 Jerusalem, as the centre of a great 
popular fermentation, was a very seditious city, and, for a 
foreigner, an insupportable place of abode. The enthusiasts 
asserted that the new procurator had a deliberate design 

990 John 14: 8; 18: 28. 

991 The Greek word fi^fxa had been adopted in Syro-Chaldaic. 
992 Josephus, Wars, 2, 9: 3; 14: 8. Matt. 27: 27. John 18: 33. 

993 John 18: 29. 

994 Virgil, Mneid, 12: 121; Martial, Epig. 1: 32, and 10: 48; Plutarch, 
Rom. 29; comp. the hasta pura as a military decoration (Orelli and Hen- 
zen, Inscr. Lot. 3574, 6852, etc) . The form Pilatus is thus a designation 
like Galeatus, Torquatus, etc. 

995 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 38. 

286 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

of abolishing the Jewish law. 996 Their narrow fanaticism 
and their religious hatred disgusted that wide feeling of 
justice and civil government which the most ordinary Ro- 
man citizen carried everywhere with him. All the acts of 
Pilate known to us exhibit him as a good administrator. 997 
At an early period of the exercise of his office he had had 
difficulties with those under his sway, which he had solved 
in a very brutal manner; but it seems that essentially he 
was in the right. The Jews must have appeared to him to 
be a people behind the age; probably he judged them as a 
liberal prefect formerly judged the Bas-Bretons, who re- 
belled because of a new road, or the establishment of a 
school. In his best projects for the welfare of the country, 
notably in all relating to public works, he had encountered 
an impassable obstacle in the Law. The Law restricted 
life to such a point that it obstructed all change and all 
improvements. The Roman structures, even those most 
useful, were objects of great antipathy to zealous Jews. 998 
Two votive escutcheons with inscriptions, which Pilate had 
placed on his residence near the sacred precincts, provoked 
a still more violent outburst. 999 At first he paid little at- 
tention to these susceptibilities; and he was soon involved 
in sanguinary suppressions of revolt, 1000 which later ended 
in his removal. 1001 Experience of so many conflicts had 
rendered him very prudent in his relations with an intract- 
able people, which avenged itself upon its masters by com- 
pelling them to use towards it hateful severities. With 
extreme displeasure the procurator saw himself led to play 
a cruel part in this new affair, for the sake of a law which 

996 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 3: 1. 

997 Ibid. 3, 4. 

998 Babylonian Talmud, Schabbath, 33 b. 

999 Philo, Leg. ad Caium, 38. 

1000 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 3: 1, 2; Wars, 2, 9: 2, 3. Luke 13: 1. 

1001 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 4: 1, 2. 

287 



LIFE OF JESUS 

he detested. 1002 He knew that religious fanaticism, when 
it has obtained the sanction of civil governments to some 
act of violence, is afterwards the first to throw the respon- 
sibility upon them, and almost accuses them of bringing 
it about. Supreme injustice, for the true culprit in such 
cases is the instigator! 

Pilate then would have liked to save Jesus. Perhaps the 
dignified and calm attitude of the accused made an im- 
pression upon him. According to one tradition, of little 
authenticity indeed, 1003 Jesus found a supporter in the wife 
of the procurator himself, who asserted that she had had a 
painful dream about him. She may have seen the gentle 
Galilean from one of the palace windows overlooking the 
courts of the Temple. Perhaps she saw him again in her 
dreams; and the idea that the blood of this fine-looking 
young man was about to be spilt caused a nightmare. It 
is certain at least that Jesus found Pilate prepossessed in 
his favour. The governor questioned him kindly, and with 
the intention of finding some means of sending him away 
acquitted. 

The title of " King of the Jews," which Jesus had never 
assumed, but which his enemies represented as the sum and 
substance of his line of actions and pretensions, was nat- 
urally that by which it was most possible to excite the 
suspicions of the Roman authorities. He was accordingly 
charged on this plea of sedition and treason against the 
government. Nothing could be more unjust; for Jesus 
had always recognised the Roman government as the estab- 
lished power. But conservative religious parties are not 
accustomed to shrink from calumny. In spite of his own 
explanation, they drew all kinds of conclusions from his 
teaching; they transformed him into a disciple of Judas 
the Gaulonite; they asserted that he forbade the payment 
1002 John 18: 35. 1003 Matt. 27: 19. 

288 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

of tribute to Caesar. 1004 Pilate asked him if he were really 
the King of the Jews. 1005 Jesus concealed none of his 
thoughts. But the great ambiguity of speech which had 
been the source of his strength, and was destined after his 
death to establish his kingship, was in this matter his ruin. 
As an idealist, that is to say, as one who did not distin- 
guish spirit from substance, Jesus, whose words, to use the 
image of the Apocalypse, were as a two-edged sword, never 
completely satisfied earthly powers. If we are to believe 
the fourth Gospel, he avowed his kingship, but uttered at 
the same time the profound saying: " My kingdom is not 
of this world" (Matt. 27:19). Then he explained the 
nature of his kingship, declaring that it consisted entirely 
in the possession and the proclamation of truth. Pilate 
understood nothing of this lofty idealism. 1006 No doubt 
Jesus impressed him as being a harmless dreamer. The 
total absence of religious and philosophical proselytism 
among the Romans of the period made them regard de- 
votion to truth as a chimera. Such discussions bored them 
and appeared meaningless. Not perceiving the leaven of 
peril to the Empire that lay hidden in these new specula- 
tions, they had no motive for employing violence against 
them. All their displeasure fell upon those who asked 
them to inflict punishments for what seemed to them vain 
subtleties. Twenty years later, Gallio still adopted the 
same course towards the Jews. 1007 Until the fall of Jeru- 
salem, the practice followed by the Romans in their ad- 
ministration was to remain completely neutral in sectarian 
quarrels. 1008 

1004 Luke 23: 2, 5. 

1005 Matt. 27: 11; Mark 15: 2; Luke 23: 3; John 18: 33. 

1006 John 18: 28. 

1007 Acts > 18: 14, 15. 

1008 Tacitus (Ann. 15: 44) speaks of the death of Jesus as a political 
act of Pilate. But when Tacitus wrote, the Roman policy towards 



LIFE OF JESUS 

An expedient suggested itself to the governor's mind, by 
which he could reconcile his own feelings with the demands 
of the fanatical people, whose pressure he had felt so often 
already. It was customary to deliver up a prisoner to the 
people at the time of the Passover. Pilate, aware that 
Jesus had been arrested only because of the jealousy of the 
priests, 1009 endeavoured to make him benefit by this custom. 
He again appeared on the bema, and proposed to the multi- 
tude to release the " King of the Jews." The proposition 
made in these terms was characterised by a certain liber- 
ality, as well as being ironical. The priests saw its danger. 
They acted promptly, 1010 and, to combat Pilate's proposal, 
they suggested to the crowd the name of a prisoner who 
enjoyed great popularity in Jerusalem. By a singular co- 
incidence, he too was called Jesus, 1011 and bore the surname 
of Bar-Abba, or Bar-Rabban. 1012 He was a well-known 
character, 1013 and had been arrested for taking part in a 
riot in which murder had been done. 1014 A general clamour 
arose, " Not this man, but Jesus Bar-Rabban;" and Pilate 
was obliged to release Jesus Bar-Rabban. 

His embarrassment increased. He feared that too much 
indulgence shown to a prisoner, to whom was given the title 
of " King of the Jews," might compromise himself. Fa- 
naticism, moreover, compels all powers to make terms with 
it. Pilate thought himself forced to make some concession; 

Christians had changed: they were held guilty of secret conspiracy against 
the state. The historian naturally thought that Pilate, in putting 
Jesus to death, was governed by reasons of public safety. Josephus 
is more correct {Antiq., 18, 3: 3). 
100C Mark 15: 10. 

1010 Matt. 27: 20; Mark 15: 11. 

1011 The name "Jesus" has disappeared in most manuscripts, but 
the reading has strong authority in its favour. 

1012 Matt. 27: 16; Gospel of Hebrews (Hilgenfeld, 17, 28). 

1013 Compare Jerome on Matt. 27: 16. 

1014 Mark 15: 7; Luke 23: 19. The fourth Gospel, which makes 
him a " robber," seems less well-informed than Mark. 

290 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

but, still hesitating to shed blood to satisfy people whom 
he hated, he tried to turn the matter into a farce. Affect- 
ing to laugh at the pompous title that had been given to 
Jesus, he caused him to be scourged. 1015 Scourging was the 
usual preliminary of crucifixion. 1016 Perhaps Pilate wished 
it to be believed that this sentence had already been pro- 
nounced, and hoped that the preliminary punishment would 
suffice. Then took place — according to all the narratives — 
a revolting scene. The soldiers put a scarlet robe on the 
back of Jesus, a crown made of thorn branches upon his 
head, and a reed in his hand. Thus attired he was led to 
the tribunal in front of the people. The soldiers denied 
before him, striking him in turn, and knelt to him, saying, 
" Hail ! King of the Jews." 1017 Others, it is said, spat upon 
him, and struck him on the head with the reed. It is diffi- 
cult to understand how Roman dignity could have stooped 
to acts so shameful. It is true that Pilate, in his position 
as procurator, had scarcely any but auxiliary troops under 
his command. 1018 Roman citizens, as the legionaries were, 
would not have descended to such behaviour. 

Did Pilate believe that by this display he shielded him- 
self from responsibility? Did he hope to turn aside the 
blow which menaced Jesus by conceding something to the 
hatred of the Jews, 1019 and by substituting a grotesque ter- 
mination for the tragic consummation, to make it appear 
that the matter merited no other issue? If such were his 
plan it was unsuccessful. The tumult increased, and be- 
came an actual riot. The cry, " Crucify him ! Crucify !" 

1015 Matt. 27: 26; Mark 15: 15; John 19: 1. 

1016 Josephus, Wars, 2, 14: 9; 5, 11: 1; 7, 6: 4. Livy, 33: 36. Quintus 
Curtius, 7, 11: 28. 

1017 Matt. 27: 27-30; Mark 15: 16-19; Luke 23: 11; John 19: 2, 3. 

1018 See Renier, Insc. rom. de VAlgerie, 5 frag, B. Foreign spies and 
executioners in the army do not appear till later; but see Cicero, In 
Verrem, Act 2, in numerous passages; Epist. ad Q. Frat. 1: 1, 4. 

1019 Luke 23: 16, 22. 

291 



LIFE OF JESUS 

resounded from every side. The priests, adopting a more 
and more exacting tone, declared the Law would be im- 
perilled if the corrupter were not punished with death. 1020 
Pilate saw plainly that to save Jesus it would be necessary 
to put down a sanguinary outbreak. He still tried, how- 
ever, to gain time. He returned to the Praetorium, and 
ascertained from what country Jesus came in the hope of 
finding some pretext for asserting the matter to be out of 
his jurisdiction. According to one tradition, he even sent 
Jesus to Antipas, who, it is said, was then at Jerusalem. 1021 
Jesus took no part in these well-meant efforts; he kept, as 
he had done before Kaiapha, a grave and dignified silence 
which astonished Pilate. The cries from without became 
more and more threatening. The people had already be- 
gun to denounce the lack of zeal in a functionary who pro- 
tected an enemy of Caesar. The greatest foes of the Roman 
rule were suddenly transformed into loyal subjects of 
Tiberius, that they might have the right of accusing the 
over-tolerant procurator of high treason. " We have no 
king," cried they, " but Caesar. If thou release this man, 
thou art not Caesar's friend: every one that maketh himself 
a king speaketh against Caesar." 1022 The feeble Pilate sur- 
rendered; he foresaw the report that his enemies would 

1020 John 19:7. 

1021 John 19: 9; comp. Luke 23: 6-12. This may be a first attempt 
to "harmonize" the Gospels, Luke having had in his hand an account 
in which the death of Jesus was wrongly laid to Herod, and, not to lose 
this point entirely, pieced the two accounts together, — the rather, because 
he vaguely knew that (as the fourth Gospel gives it) Jesus appeared 
before three tribunals. In sundry other cases, Luke seems to have a 
distant notion of facts peculiar to John's narration. Further, the third 
Gospel includes in the story of the crucifixion a number of additions 
which the author seems to have found in a later account, evidently 
compiled with a view to edification. 

1022 John 19: 12, 15: comp. Luke 23: 2. How accurately the colour- 
ing of this scene is given by the evangelists, may be seen in Philo, Lega- 
tio ad Caium, 38. 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

send to Rome, in which he would be accused of having pro- 
tected a rival of Tiberius. Once before, in the question 
of the votive escutcheons/ 023 the Jews had written to the 
Emperor, and had received satisfaction. He feared for 
his office. By a compliance, which was to deliver his name 
to the scourge of history, he yielded, throwing upon the 
Jews, it is said, the whole responsibility for what was about 
to take place. The latter, according to the Christians, fully 
accepted it, by shouting, " His blood be on us and on 
our children ! " 1024 • 

Were these words really uttered? It may be doubted. 
But they express a profound historical truth. Considering 
the attitude which the Romans had taken in Judaea, it was 
scarcely possible for Pilate to have acted otherwise than as 
he did. How many death sentences, dictated by religious 
intolerance, have forced the hand of the civil power ! The 
King of Spain, who, to please a fanatical clergy, delivered 
hundreds of his subjects to the stake, was more open to 
reproach than Pilate, for he represented a more absolute 
power than that of the Romans in Jerusalem about the year 
33. When the civil power begins to persecute or meddle 
at the solicitation of the priesthood, it proves its weakness. 
But let the government that in this respect is without sin 
cast the first stone at Pilate. The " secular arm," behind 
which clerical cruelty shields itself, is not the culprit. None 
has a right to say that he has a horror of blood when he 
causes it to be shed by his servants. 

It was then neither Tiberius nor Pilate who condemned 
Jesus. It was the old Jewish party; it was the Mosaic Law. 
According to our modern ideas, there is no transmission of 
moral demerit from father to son; none is accountable to 
human or divine justice save for what himself has done. 
Consequently, every Jew who suffers to this day for the 
1023 See ante, p. 377. 1024 Matt. 27: 24, 25. 



LIFE OF JESUS 

murder of Jesus has a right to complain, for he might have 
been like Simon the Cyrenean; at any rate, he might not 
have been among those who cried "Crucify him!" But 
nations, like individuals, have their responsibilities, and if 
ever a crime was a national crime, it was the death of Jesus. 
His death was " legal " in the sense that it was primarily 
caused by a law that was the very soul of the nation. The 
Mosaic Law, in its modern but still in its accepted form 
assigned the penalty of death to all attempts to change the 
established worship. Now, there can be no doubt that Jesus 
attacked this worship, and aspired to destroy it. The Jews 
expressed this to Pilate, with truthful simplicity: "We 
have a law, and by that law he ought to die ; because he has 
made himself the son of God " (John 19: 7). The law was 
detestable, but it was the law of ancient ferocity; and the 
hero, who came forward to abrogate it, had first of all to 
suffer its penalty. 

Alas ! more than eighteen hundred years have been 
necessary for the blood that he shed to bear its fruits. 
Tortures and death were for ages destined to be inflicted 
in the name of Jesus, on thinkers as noble as himself. 
Even now in countries which call themselves Christian, 
penalties are imposed for religious offences. Jesus is not 
responsible for these errors. He could not foresee that 
one day people, with depraved imaginations, would think 
of him as a frightful Moloch, greedy of burnt flesh. 
Christianity has been intolerant, but there is nothing essen- 
tially Christian in intolerance. It is a Jewish characteristic, 
in the sense that it was Judaism which first affirmed the 
theory of absolutism in religion, and laid down the principle 
that every reformer turning men away from the true faith, 
even if he bring miracles to support his doctrine, must be 
stoned without trial. 1025 Certainly the pagan nations also 
1025 Deut. 13:1-11. 



ARREST AND TRIAL OF JESUS 

had their religious violences. But if they had had this law, 
how would they have become Christian? The Pentateuch 
has thus been the first code of religious terrorism in the 
world. Judaism has given the example of an immutable 
dogma armed with the sword. If, in place of pursuing the 
Jews with a blind hatred, Christianity had abolished the 
regime which caused the death of its founder, how much 
more consistent would it have been — how much better it 
would have deserved of the human race! 



295 



CHAPTER XXV 

The Death of Jesus 

Although the real motive for the death of Jesus was en- 
tirely a religious one, his enemies had, in the judgment hall, 
succeeded in representing him as being guilty of treason 
against the state; they would not have obtained from the 
sceptical Pilate a condemnation simply on the ground of 
heterodoxy. Following up the idea, the priests demanded, 
through the people, the crucifixion of Jesus. This punish- 
ment was not Jewish in its origin; had the condemnation 
of Jesus been purely Mosaic, he would have been stoned to 
death. 1026 Crucifixion was a Roman punishment, reserved 
for slaves, and for cases in which it was desired to aggra- 
vate death by making it ignominious. By inflicting it on 
Jesus, they treated him as they treated highway robbers, 
brigands, bandits, or those enemies of humble rank to whom 
the Romans did not grant the honour of death by the 
sword. 1027 It was the chimerical " King of the Jews," not 
the heterodox dogmatist, who was punished. Consistently 
with the same idea, the execution was left to the Romans. 
At this epoch, amongst the Romans, the soldiers, at least in 
the case of political condemnations, 1028 performed the duties 
of executioners. Jesus was therefore delivered to a cohort 

1028 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1. The Talmud, representing his con- 
demnation to be wholly on religious grounds, asserts that he was really 
condemned to be stoned, but goes on to say that he was hanged, — 
meaning, perhaps that he was hanged after being stoned, as was some- 
times done (Mishna, Sanhedrin, 6: 4; comp. Deut. 21: 22). Jerusalem 
Talmud, Sanhedrin, 14: 16; Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 43 a, 67 c. 

1027 Josephus, Antiq., 17, 10: 10, and 20, 6: 2; Wars, 5, 11: 1. Apule- 
ius, Metam. 3: 9. Suet. Galba, 9. Lampridas, Alex. Severus, 23. 

1038 Tacitus, Ann, 3: 14 (see p. 381, note 2). 

296 



THE DEATH OF JESUS 

of auxiliary troops, 1029 and all the most hateful character- 
istics of executions introduced by the cruel customs of the 
new conquerors were used in his case. It was about 
noon. 1030 They re-clothed him with the garments which 
they had removed for the scene at the tribunal, and as the 
cohort already had in reserve two thieves who were to be 
executed, the three condemned men were put together, and 
the procession set out for the scene of the execution. 

This was at a place called Golgotha, situated outside 
Jerusalem, but near the walls of the city. 1031 The name 
Golgotha signifies a skull j it apparently corresponds with 
the French word Chaumont, and probably designated a bare 
hill or rising ground having the form of a bald skull. The 
situation of the hill is not precisely known. It was cer- 
tainly on the north or north-west of the city, in the high 
irregular plain which extends between the walls and the 
two valleys of Kedron and Hinnom, 1032 a rather common- 
place region, made still more dismal by the objectionable 
circumstances usual in the neighbourhood of a great city. 
There is no reason for identifying Golgotha with the place 
which, since the time of Constantine, has been venerated 
by all Christendom. 1033 But, at the same time, there is no 

1029 Matt. 27: 54; Mark 15: 39, 44, 45; Luke 23: 47. 

1030 John 19: 14. According to Mark (15: 25), it could hardly have 
been later than eight, since he was crucified at nine ("the third hour"). 

1031 Matt. 27: 33; Mark 15: 22; John 19: 20; Heb. 13: 12; comp. 
Plautus, Miles Gloriosus, 2, 4: 6, 7. 

1032 Golgotha seems to'have some relation with the hill Gareb and the 
spot called Goath (Jer. 31: 39), which were apparently on the north- 
west of the city. We may conjecturally fix the place near the extreme 
angle made by the present wall towards the west, or else on one of the 
hillsides looking down upon the valley of Hinnom, above Birket Ma- 
ntilla (near which is "Gordon's Calvary"; see Pierre Loti's Jerusalem, 
p. 102). Or we might have in mind the eminence overlooking "Jere- 
miah's Grotto." 

1033 rpkg arguments which aim to show that the Holy Sepulchre has 
been removed since Constantine are without weight. 

297 



LIFE OF JESUS 

such overwhelming objection to this theory as to make it 
necessary to criticise Christian traditions on the matter. 1034 
Any one who was condemned to the cross had himself to 
carry the instrument of his execution. 1035 But Jesus, being 
physically weaker than his two companions, could not carry 
his. The troop met a certain Simon of Cyrene, who was 
returning from the country, and the soldiers, in the rough 

1034 The question turns on whether the place now known as Golgotha 
(which is well within the present limits of the city) was at the time of 
Jesus outside the walls. About eighty yards to the east of the traditional 
location of Calvary, there has been found the face of a Jewish wall like 
that of Hebron; and this, if it belonged to the city wall of that date, 
would leave the site referred to quite outside the town (Vogue, Le Temple, 
etc., p. 117). A burial-cavern (called "tomb of Joseph of Arimathea"), 
under the wall of the cupola of the " Holy Sepulchre," seems to show that 
at some period this spot was outside the walls (see, however, Mishna, 
Parah, 3: 2; Baba kama, 7 end); but this cavern does not seem old 
enough (see Vogue, p. 115) to allow us to suppose it earlier than the line 
of wall existing in the time of Jesus. Two historical considerations, 
one of them having some weight, may further be called to the support 
of the traditional view: 1. First, it would be strange if those who, under 
Constantine, sought to fix the gospel topography, had not been checked 
by the objection found in John 19: 20 ("nigh the city") and Heb. 13:12 
("without the gate"). How, left free in their choice, should they have 
lightly incurred so grave a difficulty ? We are thus led to think that 
these devout topographers had some solid ground; that they sought for 
proofs, and, though not wholly on their guard against pious frauds, they 
were guided by real tokens: if they had followed a mere vain caprice, 
they would have fixed Golgotha upon some more evident spot, — the top 
of some one of the round hillocks near Jerusalem, yielding thus to the 
Christian fancy, which would have it that the death of the Christ took 
place upon a mountain. 2. The second consideration favouring the 
tradition is, that at the time of Constantine a temple of Venus built (it 
is said) by Hadrian upon Golgotha — or least the memory of this temple — 
might serve as a guide. This, however, is far from proof. Eusebius 
(Vita Const 3: 26), Socrates (H. E. 1: 17), Sozomen (H. E. 2: 1), and 
Jerome (Ep. 49, ad Paulinum) say, it is true, that there was a shrine 
of Venus on the spot which they identify with the Holy Sepulchre; but 
it is not certain (1) that it was built by Hadrian; (2) that it was built 
on a spot called at that day Golgotha; or (3) that he had the intention 
of building it at the place where Jesus suffered death. 

1035 Plutarch, De sera Numinis vindicta, 19; Artemidorus, Oniro- 
crit, 2: 56. 

298 



THE DEATH OF JESUS 

fashion of foreign garrisons, forced him to bear the fatal 
tree. Perhaps they made use of a recognised right to com- 
pel labour, the Romans not being allowed to carry the in- 
famous wood themselves. It appears that Simon was after- 
wards of the Christian community. His two sons, Alex- 
ander and Rufus, 1036 were well known in it. He re- 
lated perhaps more than one circumstance which he had 
witnessed. No disciple was at this moment near 
Jesus. 1037 

At last the place of execution was reached. According 
to Jewish custom, the sufferers were offered a strong aro- 
matic wine, an intoxicating beverage which, by a feeling of 
pity, was given to the condemned to stupefy them. 1038 It 
appears that the ladies of Jerusalem frequently brought 
this death wine to the unfortunates who were led to exe- 
cution; and when none of them attended, it was purchased 
by the public treasury. 1039 Jesus, after having touched the 
edge of the cup with his lips, refused to drink. 1040 This 
sad consolation of ordinary sufferers did not accord with 
his exalted nature. He preferred to go from life with 
perfect clarity of mind, and in full consciousness to await 
the death he had willed and called down upon himself. He 
was then stripped of his garments and fastened to the 
cross. 1041 The cross was composed of two beams, tied in 

1036 Mark 15: 21. 

1037 The circumstance told in Luke 23: 27-31 is one of those in which 
we note the effect of pious and tender tradition. The words here ascribed 
to Jesus ("Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me," etc.) could not 
have been regarded as his till after the siege of Jerusalem. 

1038 Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin, 3 a; Nicolas de Lire, In Matt. 27: 
34: comp. Prov. 31: 6. 

1039 Babylonian Talmud, ibid. 

1040 Mark 15: 23 ("wine mingled with myrrh"), contradicted by Matt. 
27: 34, where the "vinegar and gall" are a messianic allusion to Psalm 
69: 22. 

1041 Matt. 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; John 19: 23 (comp. Artemidorus, 
Onirocritica, 2: 53). 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the form of the letter T. 1042 It was not very high, for the 
feet of the sufferer almost touched the earth. 1043 They com- 
menced by fixing it, 1044 then they fastened the victim to it 
by driving nails into his hands ; the feet were often nailed, 
though sometimes only bound with cords. 1045 A piece of 
wood like a ship's yard was fastened to the upright portion 
of the cross, towards the middle, and passed between the 
legs of the condemned, who rested upon it. 1046 Without this, 
the hands would have been torn and the body have sunk 
down. 1047 At other times a small horizontal rest was fixed 
beneath the feet, and held them up. 1048 

Jesus tasted these horrors in all their atrocity. The 
two robbers were crucified on either side of him. The 
executioners, to whom were usually left the small effects 
(panniculaiia) of executed felons, 1049 drew lots for his gar- 
ments, 1050 and sitting at the foot of the cross, kept watch 
over him. 1051 According to one tradition, Jesus uttered this 

1042 Epi s tl e f Barnabas, 9; Lucian, Jud. voc. 12: compare the gro- 
tesque form of cross scrawled at Rome on a wall of Mt. Palatine (Gar- 
rucci: // erocifisso graffito in casa dei Cesari, Roma, 1857). 

1043 As we see from the "hyssop" of John 19: 29: with a sprig of 
hyssop one cannot reach very high. (True, this may be an allusion to 
Exod. 12: 22.) 

1044 Josephus, Wars, 7, 6: 4; Cicero, In Verr. 5: 66; Xenophon of 
Ephesus, Ephesiaca, 4: 2. 

1045 Luke 24: 39; John 20: 25-27; Plautus, Most, 2, 1: 13; Lucan, 
Pharsalia, 7: 543-547; Justin, Try ph., 97; Apol., 1: 35; Tertullian, Adv. 
Marcionem, 3: 19. 

io46 i renaeuSj Adv. h&r. 2, 24: 4; Justin, Try ph., 91. 

1047 See story by an eyewitness of a crucifixion in China: Revue ger- 
manique et frangaise, Aug., 1864, p. 358. 

10iS See the graffito before cited, and monuments in Martigny, Did. des 
antiq. chr. 193; also Gregory of Tours, De gloria mart. 1: 6. 

1049 Digest;, 47: 20, De bonis damnatorum, 6. The custom was checked 
by Hadrian. 

1050 Matt. 27: 35; Mark 15: 24; Luke 23: 34. The circumstance 
[of the coat "without seam"] added in John 19: 23, 24, seems to be a 
fancy: see Josephus, Antiq., 3, 7: 4. 

1051 Matt. 26: 36; comp. Petronius, Satyr., Ill, 112. 

300 



THE DEATH OF JESUS 

saying, which was in his heart if not upon his lips : 
" Father, forgive them; for they know not what they 
do." 1052 

According to Roman custom, an inscription was attached 
to the top of the cross, 1053 bearing, in three languages, He- 
brew, Greek, and Latin, the words: " THE KING OF THE 
JEWS." There was something painful and insulting to 
the nation in this inscription. The numerous passers-by 
who read it were offended. The priests complained to 
Pilate that an inscription which would have simply implied 
that Jesus had called himself king of the Jews should 
have been used. But Pilate, already tired of the whole 
affair, declined to make any change in what had been 
written. 1054 

The disciples had fled. Nevertheless a tradition 1055 re- 
lates that John remained standing at the foot of the cross 
during the whole time. 1056 It may be affirmed, with more 
certainty, that the faithful women friends of Galilee, who 
had followed Jesus to Jerusalem and continued to tend him, 
did not abandon him. Mary Cleophas, Mary Magdalen, 
Joanna wife of Khouza, Salome, and others stayed at a 
certain distance, 1057 and did not take their eyes from 

1052 Luke 23: 34. In general, the last words ascribed to Jesus, espe- 
cially in Luke, suggest a desire either of edification or the fulfilment of 
prophecy. In such cases, each one hears as he feels; and the last words 
of celebrated men are always variously reported by the nearest wit- 
nesses, — as in the case of the Bab (Gobineau, Les religions et les 'phi- 
losophies de VAsie centrale, 268). 

1053 This was probably carried before Jesus on the way to Calvary. 
See Sueton., Calig. 32; Euseb. Hist. 5, 1: 19 (Letter of churches of 
Vienne and Lyons). 

1054 Matt. 27: 37; Mark 15: 26; Luke 23: 38; John 19: 19-22. Perhaps 
there was a scruple of legality: Apuleius, Florida, 1: 9. 

1055 Justin, Try ph., 106. 

1056 John 19: 25 T 27. 

1057 The Synoptics all put the faithful group "far" from the cross; 
the fourth Gospel says "beside" (irapd) to indicate that John himself 
was very near. 

301 



LIFE OF JESUS 

him. 1058 If the fourth Gospel is to be believed/ 059 Mary, the 
mother of Jesus, was also at the foot of the cross, and 
Jesus, seeing his mother and his beloved disciple together, 
said to the one, " Behold thy mother ! " and to the other, 
" Behold thy son ! " 1060 But we do not understand how 
the synoptic evangelists, who name the other women, should 
have omitted her whose presence was so striking a feature. 
Perhaps indeed the extreme loftiness of the character of 
Jesus does not render such personal emotion probable at 
the moment when, solely possessed with thoughts of his 
work, he no longer existed save for humanity. 

Apart from this little group of women, the sight of 
whom afar off consoled him, Jesus had before him only a 
spectacle of human baseness or stupidity. The passers-by 
insulted him. Round about him he heard foolish raillery, 
his supreme cries of agony were turned into hateful jests: 
"He trusteth on God; let him deliver him now, if he 
desireth him: for he said, I am the Son of God." " He 

1058 Matt. 27: 55, 56; Mark 15: 40, 41; Luke 23: 49, 55, and 24, 10; 
John 19: 25; comp. Luke 23: 27-31. 

1059 John 19: 25-27. Luke, who is always on middle ground between 
the other two Gospels and the fourth, introduces "all his acquaintance" 
(23: 49), but "afar off." The expression (yvwa-roi) may, it is true, in- 
clude the "kindred;" but Luke (2:44) distinguishes between "kinsfolk" 
(ovyyevels) and "acquaintance" (yvaxTToi). Further, the best manu- 
scripts read ol yvaxrrol avry ("known to him"), not ol yvaxrrol avrov 
("his acquaintance"). Mary the mother of Jesus is by Luke (in Acts 
1: 14) put in company with the Galilean women; elsewhere (Luke 2: 35) 
he says that a sword will pierce her heart. But this is far from explain- 
ing why he omits her at the cross. 

1060 John seems, in fact, after the death of Jesus, to have taken home 
the mother of his master, and to have, as it were, adopted her (John 
19: 27). The great honour in which she was held by the infant church 
very probably led the disciples of John to maintain that Jesus, whose 
favourite disciple their master had been, had in dying commended to 
him that which he held most dear. The presence with him, whether real 
or supposed, of this precious charge gave him a certain eminence among 
the Apostles, and secured high authority to the doctrine of which he was 
made the sponsor. 

302 



THE DEATH OF JESUS 

saved others/' they said again; "himself he cannot save. 
He is the King of Israel, let him now come down from 
the cross, and we will believe on him! Thou that 
destroyest the Temple, and buildest it in three days, save 
thyself." 1061 Some who had a vague acquaintance with his 
apocalyptic ideas thought they heard him call upon Elias, 
and said, " Let us see whether Elijah cometh to save 
him." It would seem that the two crucified thieves at his 
side also insulted him. 1062 The sky was dark ; 1063 and the 
surrounding country, as throughout the environs of Jeru- 
salem, barren and dismal. For a moment, according to 
certain narratives, his heart failed him; a cloud hid from 
•him the face of his Father; he endured an agony of 
despair more acute a thousand times than all his torments. 
He saw nothing but the ingratitude of men; he perhaps 
repented his suffering for a vile race, and he cried: " My 
God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me ? " But his divine 
instinct again sustained him. In measure as the life of 
the body flickered out, his soul grew serene, and by degrees 
returned to its heavenly source. He regained the idea of 
his mission; in his death he saw the salvation of the world; 
the hideous spectacle spread at his feet, melted from his 
sight, and, profoundly united to his Father, he began upon 
the gibbet the divine life which he was to live in the heart 
of humanity through infinite ages. 

The peculiar atrocity of crucifixion was that in this 
horrible condition it was possible to live three or four days 
upon the instrument of torture. 1064 The haemorrhage from 

1061 Matt. 27: 40-43; Mark 15: 29-32. 

1082 Matt. 27: 44; Mark 15: 32. Luke modifies the account, in har- 
mony with his zeal for the conversion of sinners. 

1063 Matt. 27: 45; Mark 15: 33; Luke 23: 44. 

1064 Petronius, Satyr., Ill et seq.; Origen, Comm. in Matt. ser. 140; 
Arabic text in Kosegarten. Chrest. arab. p. 63 et seq.; Revue germ., ubi 
supra. 

303 



LIFE OF JESUS 

the hands soon ceased and was not mortal. The real cause 
of death was the unnatural position of the body, which 
produced a fearful disturbance of the circulation, terrible 
pains in the head and heart, and, finally, paralysis of the 
limbs. Those who had a strong constitution could sleep 
and only died of hunger. 1065 The motive idea of this cruel 
punishment was not to kill the victim directly by positive 
injuries, but to expose the slave, nailed by the hands of 
which he had not known how to make good use, and to 
leave him to rot on the wood. The" delicate organisation 
of Jesus preserved him from this slow agony. A burning 
thirst, one of the tortures of crucifixion, as of all punish- 
ments causing great loss of blood, devoured him, and he* 
asked to drink. 1066 There was standing near a jar of the J 
ordinary beverage of Roman soldiers, a mixture of vinegar 
and water called posca. The soldiers had to carry their 
posca with them on all their expeditions, in which exe- 
cutions were included. 1067 A soldier dipped a sponge 1068 
in this liquor, put it on the end of a reed, and raised it to 
the lips of Jesus, who sucked it. 1069 There is a theory in 
the East that allowing crucified or empaled victims to 
drink accelerates death ; 107 ° many believed 1071 that Jesus 
rendered up his spirit directly he had drunk the vinegar. 
It is much more probable that an apoplectic stroke or the 
instantaneous rupture of a blood-vessel in the heart caused 
his sudden death at the end of three hours. Some moments 

1065 Eusebius, Hist. 8: 8; Revue germ. ibid. 

1066 See the Arabic text before referred to. 

1067 Spartian, Vita Adriani; Vulcatius Gallicanus, Avidius Cassius, 5. 

1068 Probably the small sponge which served as a stopper to the neck of 
the vessel containing the posca. 

1069 Matt. 27: 48; Mark 15: 36; Luke 23: 36; John 19: 28-30. 

1070 See Nicolas de Lire, In Matt. 27: 34, and John 19: 29; also the 
accounts of the execution of Kleber's assassin. Compare Rev. germ., 
etc. 

1071 See Matt., Mark, and John. 

304 



THE DEATH OF JESUS 

before giving up his soul his voice was still strong. 1072 Of 
a sudden he uttered a terrible cry, heard by some as: 
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit!" (Luke 
23:46) but by others, more preoccupied with the accom- 
plishment of prophecies, rendered in the words, " It is 
finished!" (John 19:30.) His head fell upon his breast, 
and he expired. 

Rest now in thy glory, noble pioneer ! Thy work is 
achieved, thy divinity established. Fear no more to see 
the edifice of thine efforts crumble through a flaw. Hence- 
forth, beyond the reach of frailty, thou shalt behold, from 
the heights of heavenly peace, the infinite consequences of 
thy deeds. At the price of a few hours of suffering, which 
have not even touched thy mighty soul, thou hast pur- 
chased the fullest immortality. For thousands of years 
the world will depend upon thee! Banner of our con- 
tradictions, thou shalt be the sign around which the fiercest 
battle shall be waged. A thousand times more alive, a 
thousand times more loved since thy death than during the 
days of thy pilgrimage here below, thou shalt become so 
truly the corner-stone of humanity, that to tear thy name 
from this world were to shake it to its foundations. Be- 
twixt thee and God men shall distinguish no more. Thou 
that hast utterly vanquished death, take possession of thy 
kingdom, whither, by the royal road which thou hast shown, 
ages of worshippers shall follow thee. 

1072 Matt. 27: 46; Mark 15: 34. 



305 



CHAPTER XXVI 

Jesus in the Tomb 

It was about three o'clock in the afternoon, according to 
our manner of reckoning time, when Jesus expired. 1073 
There was a Jewish law against a corpse being allowed to 
remain hanging on the cross after the evening of the day 
of execution. 1074 It is not probable that this rule was ob- 
served in executions carried out by the Romans, but as the 
next day was the Sabbath, and a Sabbath of peculiar 
solemnity, the Jews expressed to the Roman authorities 1075 
their desire that the holy day should not be profaned by 
such a spectacle. 1076 Their request was granted; orders 
were given to hasten the death of the three victims, and to 
remove them from the cross. The soldiers obeyed these 
instructions by inflicting on the two thieves a second pun- 
ishment much more speedy than that of the cross, the 
crurifragium, or breaking of the legs, 1077 the usual pun- 
ishment for slaves and prisoners of war. As to Jesus, they 
found that he was dead, and did not think it necessary to 
break his legs. 1078 But one of them, to remove all doubt 

1073 Matt. 27: 46; Mark 15: 37; Luke 23: 44: comp. John 19: 14. 

1074 Deut. 21: 22, 23; Joshua 8: 29, and 10: 26, 27: comp. Josephus, 
Wars, 4, 5: 2; Mishna, Sanhedrin, 6: 5. 

1075 In the fourth Gospel "to Pilate;" but this cannot be, for Mark 
(15: 44, 45) states that "when the even was come" Pilate was still igno- 
rant of the death of Jesus. 

1076 Comp. Philo, In Flaccum, 10. 

1077 There is no other example of crurifragium following crucifixion, 
though a "stroke of grace" was often given to shorten the suffering. 
See a passage translated from Ibn-Hischam in the Zeitschr. fur die Kunde 
des Morgenlandes, 1: 99, 100. 

1078 ^his i s> possibly, an addition inserted to liken Jesus to the paschal 
lamb; Exodus 12: 46; Numbers 9: 12. 

306 



JESUS IN THE TOMB 

as to the actual death of the third victim, and to complete 
it, if any breath remained in him, pierced his side with a 
spear. 1079 They thought they saw water and blood flow 
from the wound/ 080 which was regarded as a sign that life 
had ceased. 

The fourth evangelist, who makes John an actual witness 
of the affair, insists strongly on this circumstance. 1081 It 
is evident indeed that doubts arose as to the reality of the 
death of Jesus. A few hours' suspension on the cross 
appeared to persons in the habit of seeing crucifixions 
quite insufficient to bring about such a result. They quoted 
many instances of crucified persons, who, having been 
removed in time, had been restored to life by powerful 
remedies. 1082 Origen, at a later date, thought it necessary 
to invoke miracle in order to explain so sudden an end. 1083 
The same surprise is to be found in the narrative of 
Mark. 1084 In truth, the best guarantee possessed by the 
historian on a point of this nature is the suspicious hatred 
of the enemies of Jesus. It is doubtful whether the Jews 
were at that time filled with apprehension that Jesus might 
pass for resuscitated; but, in any case, they must have 
taken care that he was really dead. Whatever, at certain 
periods, may have been the negligence of the ancients in 
everything relating to legal proof and the strict conduct 
of affairs, we cannot but believe that those interested in this 
case took precautions in a matter of such importance to 
them. 1085 

1079 p er haps a similar parallel with Zechariah 12: 10: comp. John 19: 
37; Rev. 1: 7. 

1080 jj ere5 again, we may suspect an a priori symbolism: comp. 1 John 
5: 6-8; Apollinaris in the Chronique Pascale, p. 7. 

1081 John 19: 34 35. 

1082 Herodotus, V: 194; Josephus, Life, 75. 
loss i n M a fc Comment, series, 140. 

1084 Mark 15: 44, 45. 

toss The exigencies of their argument led the Christians afterwards to 

307 



LIFE OF JESUS 

According to Roman custom, the corpse of Jesus ought 
to have remained hanging on the cross to become the prey 
of birds. 1086 According to Jewish law, it would have been 
removed in the evening, and laid in the place of infamy set 
apart for the burial of those who were executed. 1087 Had 
Jesus had for his disciples only poor Galileans, who were 
timid and without influence, the latter course would have 
been taken. But we have seen that, despite his lack of 
success at Jerusalem, he had gained the sympathy of some 
important persons who looked forward to the kingdom of 
God; and these, without avowing themselves his disciples, 
were strongly attached to him. One of these persons, 1088 
Joseph, of the small town of Arimathea (Haramathaim), 
went in the evening to ask the body from the procurator. 1089 
Joseph was a rich and honourable man and a member of 
the Sanhedrim. The Roman law moreover at this period 
enacted that the body of the person executed should be 
delivered over to any one who claimed it. 1090 Pilate, who 
was ignorant of what had occurred at the crurifragium, 
was astonished that Jesus should be so soon dead, and sum- 
moned the centurion who had superintended the execution, 
in order to learn how this was; but, after having received 
the centurion's assurances, he granted Joseph the object of 
his request. Probably the body had already been taken 
down from the cross. It was delivered to Joseph, that he 
might do with it as he pleased. 

exaggerate these precautions, especially when the Jews had adopted the 
course of insisting that the body of Jesus had been stolen. See Matt. 
27: 62-66; 28: 11-15. 

1086 Horace, Ep. 1, 16: 48; Juvenal, 14: 77; Lucan, 6: 544; Plautus, 
Miles, 2, 4: 19; Artemidorus, Onir., 2: 53; Pliny, 36: 24; Plutarch, 
Cleamenes, 39; Petronius, Sat. Ill, 112. 

1087 Mishna, Sanhedrin, 6: 5, 6. 

loss Probably the ancient Ramah of Samuel, in the tribe of Ephraim. 

1089 Matt. 27: 57, 58; Mark 15: 42-45; Luke 23: 50-53; John 19: 38. 

1090 Digest, 48: 24; JDe cadaveribus punitorum. 

308 



JESUS IN THE TOMB 

Another secret friend, Nicodemus, 1091 whom we have al- 
ready seen using his influence in favour of Jesus, came 
forward at this moment. He arrived bearing an ample 
provision of the materials necessary for embalming. 
Joseph and Nicodemus interred Jesus according to Jewish 
custom — that is to say, by wrapping him in a sheet with 
myrrh and aloes. The Galilean women were present/ 093 
and no doubt took part in the proceedings with bitter cries 
and tears. 

It was late, and all this was done in great haste. The 
place in which the body was to be finally deposited had 
not yet been chosen. Moreover, its being carried thither 
might have implied delay to a late hour, and a possible 
violation of the Sabbath; and the disciples still conscien- 
tiously observed the regulations of the Jewish law. A 
temporary interment was therefore decided on. 1093 There 
was close at hand, in a garden, a tomb recently dug out 
in the rock which had never been used. It probably be- 
longed to one of the believers. 1094 Funeral caves, when 
destined for a single body, were in the form of a small 
room, at the bottom of which the place for the corpse was 
marked by a trough or couch let into the wall, and sur- 
mounted by an arch. 1095 As these caves were cut out of 
the sides of sloping rocks, the entrance, which was closed 

1091 John 19: 39^12. 

1092 Matt. 27: 61; Mark 15: 47; Luke 23: 55. 

1093 John 19: 41, 42. 

1094 A tradition (Matt. 27: 60) denotes Joseph of Arimathea as himself 
the owner of the tomb. 

1095 rpjjg cave SU pposed in the time of Constantine to be the tomb of 
Christ had this form, as may be inferred from the description of Arcul- 
phus (in Mabillon, Acts SS. Ord. S. Bened., 3, 2: 504), and from the 
vague traditions preserved at Jerusalem among the Greek clergy on the 
condition of the rock now hidden by the chapel of the Holy Sepulchre. 
But the proofs of identification relied on, under Constantine, were 
feeble or void (see especially Sozomen, H. E., 2: 1). Even admitting 
the site of Golgotha to be nearly accurate, the Holy Sepulchre would 

309 



LIFE OF JESUS 

by a stone very difficult to move, was in the floor. The 
body of Jesus was placed in the cave/ 096 the stone was 
rolled to the door, and promises were made to return in 
order to give him a more complete burial. But the next 
day being a solemn Sabbath, the work was postponed till 
the day following. 1097 

The women went away after carefully noticing how the 
body was laid. They employed the remaining hours of the 
evening in making new preparations for the embalming. 
On the Saturday all rested. 1098 

On the Sunday morning the women, Mary Magdalen 
being the first, came at a very early hour to the tomb. 1099 
The stone had been removed from the opening, and the 
body was no longer in the place where it had been laid. 
At the same time, the strangest rumours began to spread 
in the Christian community. The cry, " He is risen !" 
quickly ran from disciple to disciple. Love caused it to 
find ready credence everywhere. What had taken place? 
In treating of the history of the apostles we shall have 
to examine this point, and to inquire into the origin of the 
legends relating to the resurrection. For the historian, the 
life of Jesus finishes with his last breath. But such was 
the impression he had left in the heart of his disciples and 
of a few devoted women, that during some weeks more it 
was as though he were still alive and consoling them. By 
whom had his body been taken away ? 110 ° Under what con- 
ditions did enthusiasm, always prone to credulity, create the 
group of narratives by which faith in the resurrection was 

have no serious claim to be authentic. In any case, the aspect of the 
localivy is completely changed. 
109 » Cor. 15: 4. 

1097 Luke 23: 56. 

1098 L u k; e 23: 54-56. 

1099 Matt. 28: 1; Mark 16: 1; Luke 24: 1; John 20: 1. 

1100 See Matt. 28: 15; John 20, 2. 

310 



JESUS IN THE TOMB 

established? In the absence of contradictory documents 
this can never be ascertained. Let us say, however, that 
the strong imagination of Mary Magdalen 1101 played an 
important part in the matter. 1102 Divine power of love! 
Sacred moments in which the passion of one possessed 
gave to the world a resuscitated God! 

1101 She had been possessed by "seven demons"; Mark 16: 9; Luke 
8: 2. 

1102 This is evident chiefly in the sixteenth chapter of Mark, verses 
9-11, and so on to the end, making a conclusion quite independent of the 
original ending of this Gospel at verse 8. (See MS. B of the Vatican, 
and the Sinaitic codex.) In the fourth Gospel (20: 1, 2, 11, 12, 18) Mary 
of Magdala is also the first and solitary witness of the resurrection. 



311 



CHAPTER XXVII 

The Fate of the Enemies of Jesus 

According to the calculation adopted by us, the death of 
Jesus happened in the year 33 of our era. 1103 At all events 
it could not have been either before the year 29, the preach- 
ing of John and Jesus having begun in the year 28, 1104 or 
after the year 35, since in 36, and probably before the 
Passover, both Pilate and Kaiapha lost their offices. 1105 The 
death of Jesus appears, however, to have had no connection 
whatever with these two removals. 1106 In his retirement, 
Pilate probably never for a moment dreamt of the forgot- 
ten episode which was to hand down his pitiful renown to 
the most distant posterity. As to Kaiapha, he was suc- 
ceeded by Jonathan, his brother-in-law, son of the same 
Hanan who had played the chief part in the trial of Jesus. 
The pontificate was kept in the Sadducean family of Hanan 
for a long time still, and the latter, more powerful than 
ever, did not cease to wage against the disciples and family 
of Jesus the implacable war which it had commenced 
against the founder. Christianity, which to Hanan owed 
the decisive act of its foundation, to him owed also its first 

uo3 rj^g y ear 33 corresponds well with one of the data of the problem; 
namely, that the 14th of Nisan was Friday. If we reject this date, we 
must, to find another which fills this condition, go back to 29 or forward 
to 36 (see ante, p. 354, note 7). 

1104 Luke 3: 1. 

1105 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 4: 2, 3. 

1106 The assertion to the contrary, made by Tertullian and Eusebius, 
rests on an apocryphal or a worthless legend (see Philo. Cod. apocr. N. T. 
p. 813 et seq). The suicide of Pilate (Euseb. Hist. 2: 7; Chron. ad Ann. 
1 Caii) seems also to be legendary (Tischendorf, Evang. apocr. p. 432. 
et seq.). 

312 



FATE OF ENEMIES OF JESUS 

martyrs. He was reputed one of the happiest men of his 
time. 1107 The man who was really guilty of the death of 
Jesus ended his life full of honours and respect, never for 
an instant having doubted that he had rendered a great 
service to his nation. His sons continued to rule in the 
Temple, with difficulty kept in subjection by the procu- 
rators, and often dispensing with the consent of the 
latter in order to gratify their violent and haughty in- 
stincts. 1108 

Antipas and Herodias also soon disappeared from the 
political stage. Herod Agrippa having been raised to the 
dignity of king by Caligula, the jealous Herodias swore 
that she too would be a queen. Incessantly goaded on by 
this ambitious woman, who treated him as a coward, because 
he tolerated a superior in his family, Antipas overcame his 
natural indolence, and betook himself to Rome that he 
might solicit the title which his nephew had just obtained, 
in the year 39 of our era. But the affair turned out in the 
worst possible manner for him. Prejudiced in the eyes of 
the emperor by Herod Agrippa, Antipas was removed, and 
dragged out the rest of his life in exile at Lyons and in 
Spain. Herodias remained with him in his disgrace. 1109 At 
least a hundred years were to pass by before the name of 
their obscure subject, now become deified, appeared in 
these distant lands to brand upon their tombs the murder 
of John the Baptist. 

As for the wretched Judas of Kerioth, fearful legends 
were current about his death. It was asserted that he 
bought a field in the neighbourhood of Jerusalem with the 
price of his perfidy. There was in fact, to the south of 
Mount Zion, a place named Haheldama (" the field of 

1107 Josephus, Antiq., 20, 9: 1. 

1108 Josephus, ibid.; Tosiphta, Menachoth, 2. 

1109 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 7: 1, 2; Wars, 2, 9: 6. 

313 



LIFE OF JESUS 

blood"). 1110 This, it was supposed, was the property ac- 
quired by the traitor. 1111 According to one tradition he slew 
himself. 1112 According to another, he had a fall in his field, 
causing a rupture of which he died. 1113 According to others 
he died of a sort of dropsy, attended by repulsive cir- 
cumstances, which were regarded as a punishment from 
heaven. 1114 The desire of making Judas a counterpart of 
Achitophel, 1115 and of showing in him the accomplishment 
of the menaces which the Psalmist pronounces against the 
perfidious friend, 1116 perhaps gave rise to these legends. It 
may be that in the retirement of his field of Hakeldama, 
Judas led a quiet and obscure life, while his former 
friends were conquering the world and spreading his in- 
famy abroad. Perhaps also the terrible hatred which was 
concentrated on his head culminated in acts of violence in 
which was seen the finger of heaven. 

The time of the great Christian vengeance was, however, 
far distant. The new sect was in no way responsible for 
the catastrophe which Judaism was soon to experience. 
The synagogue did not understand till much later to what 
it exposed itself by putting intolerant laws in force. The 
empire was certainly still farther from suspecting that its 

1110 Jerome, De situ, etc., under the word "Acheldama." Eusebius 
(ibid.) says on the north; but the itineraries support Jerome. The tra- 
dition which gives this name to the burial-ground in the valley of Hinnom 
goes back as far as to the time of Constantine. 

1111 Acts 1: 18, 19. Matthew (or his interpolator) has given the less 
satisfactory form of the tradition, connecting with it the circumstance 
of the strangers' burial-place close by, and finding in it an imaginary 
verification of Zech. 11: 12, 13. 

1112 Matt. 27: 5. 

1113 Acts 1: 18, 19. Papias, in (Ecumenius, Ennarr. in Act. Apost. 2 
and in F. Miinter, Fragm. Patr. grcec. (Hafn, 1788), fasc. 1: 17 et seq.; 
Theophylact, In Matt. 27: 5. 

1114 Papias (in Munter) and Theophylact, as above. 

1115 2 Sam. 17: 23. 

1116 Psalms 69 and 109. 

314 



FATE OF ENEMIES OF JESUS 

future destroyer was born. For nearly three hundred years 
it was to follow its path without imagining that by its side 
principles were growing up that were destined to subject 
the world to a complete transformation. At once theo- 
cratic and democratic, the idea cast into the world by Jesus 
was, together with the Teutonic invasion, the most active 
cause of the dissolution of the work of the Caesars. On 
the one hand, the right of all men to participate in the 
kingdom of God was proclaimed; on the other, religion 
was henceforth separated in principle from the state. 
Rights of conscience, withdrawn from political law, came 
to constitute a new power — the " spiritual power." More 
than once this power has belied its origin. For ages bishops 
have been princes, and the pope, a king; the so-called 
empire of souls has at various times shown itself as a 
terrible tyranny, employing rack and stake to maintain 
itself. But the day will come when separation will bear its 
fruits, when the domain of things spiritual will cease to be 
called a " power," and be called " freedom." Born of the 
conscience of a man of the people, developed amongst the 
people, first beloved and admired by the people, Christian- 
ity was impressed with an original character which will 
never be effaced. It was the first revolutionary triumph, 
the victory of popular feeling, the advent of the simple in 
heart, the inauguration of the beautiful as understood by 
the people. Thus, in the aristocratic societies of the an- 
cient world, Jesus opened the breach through which all will 
pass. 

The civil power in fact, although innocent of the death 
of Jesus (it only countersigned the sentence, and even that 
in spite of itself), ought to bear a heavy part of the re- 
sponsibility. In presiding over the scene at Calvary, the 
state inflicted a serious blow upon itself. A legend full 
of all kinds of irreverence prevailed, and became known 
315 



LIFE OF JESUS 

throughout the whole world — a legend in which the con- 
stituted authorities played a detestable part, in which it was 
the accused that was in the right, and in which judges and 
public officials were leagued against the truth. Seditious 
in the highest degree, the history of the Passion, spread by 
a thousand popular images, displayed the Roman eagles 
as sanctioning the most iniquitous of executions, soldiers 
carrying it out, a prefect commanding it. What a blow for 
all established powers ! They have never wholly recovered 
from it. How can they assume infallibility towards poor 
men, when they have on their conscience the gigantic 
blunder of Gethsemane ? 1117 

ui7 This popular feeling was still alive in Brittany when I was a child. 
The armed police was there regarded — as the Jew was elsewhere — 
with a certain pious repugnance; for that was the power which arrested 
Jesus! 



316 



CHAPTER XXVIII 

The Essential Nature of the Work of Jesus 

Jesus, we have seen, never emerged in action from Jewish 
circles. Although his sympathy for those despised by 
orthodoxy led him to admit pagans into the kingdom of 
God, — although he may have resided more than once in a 
pagan country, and once or twice may be seen in kindly 
relations with unbelievers, 1118 — it can be said that his life 
was entirely passed in the small and compact world into 
which he was born. In Greek or Roman countries he was 
never heard of; his name appears only in profane authors 
living a hundred years later, and even then indirectly in 
relation to seditious movements provoked by his doctrine, 
of persecutions suffered by his disciples. 1119 Even on Ju- 
daism itself Jesus made no durable impression. Philo, who 
died about the year 50, had not the slightest knowledge of 
him. Josephus, born in the year 37, and writing at the 
end of the century, mentions his execution in a few lines, 1120 
as an event of secondary importance; and in his enumera- 
tion of the sects of his time he omits the Christians alto- 
gether. 1121 Justus of Tiberias, an historian of the same 
period, does not mention the name of Jesus. 1122 Nor in the 
Mishnah is there any trace of the new school; the passages 
in the two Gemaras in which the founder of Christianity is 
mentioned, do not date farther back than the fourth or 

1118 Matt. 8: 5-10; Luke 7: 1-10; John 12:20-23; comp. Josephus, 
Antiq., 18, 3, 3. 

1119 Tacitus, Ann. 15: 45; Suetonius ; Claudius, 25. 

1120 Antiq., 18, 3: 3 (the passage is altered by some Christian hand). 

1121 Antiq., 18, 1: Wars, 2, 8; Life, 2. 

1122 Photius, Bibl. cod. 33. 

317 



LIFE OF JESUS 

fifth century. 1123 The essential work of Jesus was to create 
around him a circle of disciples, whom he inspired with 
limitless affection, and in the hearts of whom he laid the 
germ of his doctrine. To have made himself beloved, " to 
the degree that after his death they ceased not to love 
him," was the great work of Jesus, and that which im- 
pressed his contemporaries most. 1124 His doctrine was so 
little dogmatic, that he never dreamed of writing it or of 
causing it to be written. Men became his disciples, not 
by believing this thing or that thing, but by being attached 
to his person and by loving him. A few sayings gathered 
together from memory, and, above all, the type of character 
he set forth, with the impression it had left, were what 
remained of him. Jesus was not a founder of dogmas, or 
a maker of creeds; he was one that infused a new spirit 
into the world. The least Christian men were, on the one 
hand, the doctors of the Greek Church, who, from the fourth 
century, began to drag Christianity into a path of puerile 
metaphysical discussions, and, on the other, the scholastics 
of the Latin Middle Ages, who wished to draw from the 
Gospel a colossal system with thousands of articles. To 
follow Jesus in expectation of the kingdom of God was all 
that being a Christian originally meant. 

It will be thus understood how, by an exceptional destiny, 
pure Christianity, after eighteen centuries, still presents 
the character of a universal and eternal religion. It is 
really because the religion of Jesus is in some respects the 
final religion. The product of a perfectly sjDontaneous 

1123 Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin, 14: 16; Aboda zara, 2: 2; Schabbath, 
14: 4. Babylonian Talmud, Sank., 43 a, 67 a; ScJiab., 104 b, 116 b; comp. 
Chagiga., 4 b; Gittin, 57 a, 90 a. The two Gemaras borrow the greater 
part of their data respecting Jesus from a burlesque and vulgar legend 
invented by the enemies of Christianity, without historical value; comp. 
Origen, Contra Celsum, 1: 28, 32. 

1124 Josephus, Antiq., 18, 3: 3. 

318 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

i spiritual movement, freed at its birth from all dogmatic 
restraint, having struggled three hundred years for liberty 
of conscience, Christianity, despite its failures, still reaps 
the fruits of its glorious origin. To renew itself, it has 
but to return to the Gospel. The kingdom of Ood,_as we 
conceive it, differs widely from the supernatural vision 
which the early Christians hoped to see shine forth in the 
clouds. But the feelings brought into the world by Jesus 
are indeed ours. His perfect idealism is the highest rule 
of the unspotted and virtuous life. He has created the 
heaven of pure souls, where is found that for which we ask 
in vain upon earth — the perfect nobility of the children of 
God, absolute sanctity, the total removal of worldly soilure, 
in short, freedom, banished by society as an impossibility, 
and existent in all its amplitude in the domain of thought 
alone. The great Master of those who take refuge in this 
ideal paradise is still Jesus. He was the first to proclaim 
the kingship of the spirit; the first to say, at least by his 
actions, " My kingdom is not of this world." The founda- 
tion of true religion was indeed his work: after him, all 
that remains is to develop it and make it fruitful. 

" Christianity " has thus become almost a synonym of 
" religion." All that is done outside the great and good 
Christian tradition is destined to be barren. Jesus founded 
the religion, as Socrates founded the philosophy, and Aris- 
totle the science, of humanity. There was philosophy be- 
fore Socrates, science before Aristotle. Since Socrates and 
since Aristotle, philosophy and science have made immense 
progress; but all has been built on the foundation which 
they laid. In the same way, religious thought had, before 
Jesus, traversed many revolutions ; since Jesus, it has made 
great conquests; but nevertheless men have not improved, 
and will not improve, upon the essential idea which Jesus 
created; once and for all he decided the real meaning of 
319 



LIFE OF JESUS 

pure worship. The religion of Jesus is limitless. The 
church has had its epochs and its phases; it has imprisoned 
itself in creeds which have only been or will only be tem- 
poral: Jesus founded the absolute religion, excluding noth- 
ing, and determining nothing unless it be the spirit. His 
creeds are not rigid dogmas, but images susceptible of end- 
less interpretations. One might seek in vain for a theo- 
logical proposition in the Gospel. All confessions of faith 
travesty the idea of Jesus, just as mediaeval scholasticism 
by proclaiming Aristotle the sole master of a science finally 
achieved, perverted, Aristotle's own ideas. Aristotle, had 
he been present at the scholastic debates, would have re- 
pudiated such a narrow doctrine ; he would have been of the 
party of progressive science against that of routine which 
shielded itself beneath his authority; he would have ap- 
plauded those who contradicted his teaching. In the same 
way, were Jesus to return amongst us, he would recognise 
as his disciples, not those who imagine they can compress 
him into a few catechismal phrases, but those who labour 
to carry on his work. Of all degrees of grandeur the 
eternal glory consists in having laid the first stone. It may 
be that in the physics and meteorology of modern times 
we may not discover a word of the treatises by Aristotle 
which bear these names; but, none the less, Aristotle re- 
mains the founder of natural science. Through whatever 
transformations dogma may pass, Jesus will still be in 
religion the creator of pure feeling, the Sermon on the 
Mount will never be superseded. No revolution will pre- 
vent us from attaching ourselves in religion to the great 
intellectual and moral ancestry at the head of which shines 
the name of Jesus. In this sense we are Christians, even 
when we separate ourselves on almost every point from 
the Christian tradition which has preceded us. 

And this great foundation was indeed the personal work 
320 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

of Jesus. To make himself adored to this degree, he must 
have been adorable. Love comes not into being save 
through an object worthy to enkindle it, and we should 
know nothing of Jesus were it not for the passion inspired 
by him in those about him, which compels us still to affirm 
that he was great and pure. The faith, the enthusiasm, 
the constancy of the first Christian generation are only to 
be explained by supposing a man of colossal greatness to 
have been at the source of the whole movement. At sight 
of the marvellous creations of the ages of faith, two im- 
pressions, equally fatal to sound historical criticism, arise 
in the mind. On the one hand we are led to suppose these 
creations too impersonal; to a collective action we attribute 
that which has often been the work of one powerful will 
and of one lofty mind. On the other hand, we decline to 
see men like ourselves in the authors of those extraordinary 
movements which have decided the destiny of humanity. 
Let us conceive a wider idea of the powers concealed by 
nature in her bosom. Our civilisations, governed by minute 
restrictions, can give us no idea of the power of man at 
periods in which the originality of the individual had a 
freer field for its development. Let us imagine a recluse 
near our capitals, dwelling in the mountains, emerging 
thence from time to time to present himself at the palaces 
of monarchs, compelling the sentinels to stand aside, and 
in imperious tones announcing to the kings the approach 
of revolutions in which he has been the moving spirit. The 
very idea provokes a smile. Such, however, was Elias; 
but Elias the Tishbite in our days would not pass the gate 
of the Tuileries. The preaching of Jesus and his free 
activity in Galilee do not deviate less completely from the 
social conditions to which we are accustomed. Free from 
our polished conventionalities, exempt from the uniform 
education which refines us, but greatly stunts our individ- 
321 



LIFE OF JESUS 

uality, these intense souls carried a surprising energy into 
action. They loom on our sight as the giants of an heroic 
age, which cannot have been real. Profound error ! Those 
men were our brothers ; they were of our stature, they felt 
and thought as we. But the breath of God was free within 
them; in us, it is fettered by the iron bonds of social petti- 
ness, and condemned to irremediable mediocrity. 

Let us place then the personality of Jesus on the high- 
est summit of human greatness. Let us not be misled by 
exaggerated doubts in the presence of a legend which for- 
ever imprisons us in a superhuman world. The life of 
Francis of Assisi is also but a tissue of miracles. And yet 
has the existence of Francis of Assisi, and of the part he 
played, ever been held in doubt? Let us say no longer that 
the glory of the foundation of Christianity belongs to the 
multitude of the early Christians, and not to him whom 
legend has deified. The inequality of men is much more 
marked in the East than amongst us. There it is no un- 
common thing to see arise, in the midst of a general at- 
mosphere of wickedness, characters whose greatness causes 
us wonderment. Far from Jesus having been created by 
his disciples, he shows himself in all things superior to his 
disciples. The latter, with the exception of St. Paul and 
perhaps of St. John, were men lacking both invention and 
genius. St. Paul himself bears no comparison with Jesus, 
and as to St. John, he has only shown in his Apocalypse 
how much the poetry of Jesus inspired him. Hence the 
great superiority of the Gospels amidst the writings of 
the New Testament. Hence the painful fall we experience 
in passing from the history of Jesus to that of the apostles. 
Even the evangelists themselves, who have bequeathed the 
image of Jesus to us, are so far beneath him of whom they 
speak that they constantly misrepresent him, from their 
inability to attain to his height. Their writings are full of 
322 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

errors and misconceptions. At every line we feel that a 
discourse of divine beauty has been transcribed by narrators 
who do not understand it, and substitute their own ideas 
for those which they only half comprehend. On the whole, 
the character of Jesus, far from having been embellished 
by his biographers, has been lowered by them. Criticism, 
to find what he really was, must discard a series of mis- 
conceptions resulting from his disciples' inferiority. These , 
painted him as they conceived of him, and frequently, while 
thinking to raise him, have in reality degraded him. 

I know that our modern ideas are more than once of- 
fended in this legend, conceived by another race, under 
another sky, and in the midst of other social needs. There 
are virtues which, in some respects, conform better with our 
taste. The good and mild Marcus Aurelius, the humble 
and gentle Spinoza, since they had no belief in their 
power to perform miracles, were free from some errors in 
which Jesus shared. Spinoza, in his profound obscurity, 
had an advantage which Jesus did not seek. By our ex- 
treme discretion in the employment of means of conviction, 
by our absolute sincerity, and by our disinterested love of 
the pure idea, we have founded — all we who have devoted 
our lives to science^a new ethical ideal. But the judg- 
ments of general history should not be restricted to con- 
siderations of personal merit. Marcus Aurelius and his 
noble teachers have had no permanent influence on the 
world. Marcus Aurelius left behind him beautiful books, 
an execrable son, and a decaying nation. Jesus remains 
for mankind an inexhaustible principle of moral regenera- 
tion. Philosophy does not suffice for the multitude. They 
must have sanctity. An Apollonius of Tyana, with his 
miraculous legend, is of necessity more successful than a 
Socrates with his cold reason. " Socrates," it was said, 
" leaves men on the earth, Apollonius takes them to / 
323 ^ 



LIFE OF JESUS 

heaven; Socrates is but a sage, Apollonius is a god." 1125 
Religion, thus far, has never existed without an element 
of asceticism, of piety, and of marvel. When, after the 
^ Antonines, it was desired to make a religion of philo- 
sophy, it was requisite to transform the philosophers into 
saints, to write the " edifying life " of Pythagoras or 
Plotinus, to attribute to them a legend, virtues of abstin- 
ence, meditation, and supernatural powers, without which 
1/ neither credence nor authority were in that age to be 
found. 

Let us abstain then from mutilating history in order to 
satisfy our petty susceptibilities. Which of us, pigmies as 
we are, could do what the extravagant Francis of Assisi, or 
the hysterical saint Theresa, has done? Let medicine have 
names to express these great eccentricities of human nature ; 
let it maintain that genius is a disease of the brain; let it 
see, in a certain moral sensitiveness, the commencement of 
consumption; let it class enthusiasm and love as nervous 
symptoms — it matters little. " Healthy " and " diseased " 
are entirely relative terms. Who would not rather be 
diseased like Pascal than healthy like the common herd? 
The narrow ideas about madness which are prevalent in 
our time very seriously mislead our historical judgments in 
questions of this order. A state in which a man says things 
of which he is not conscious, in which thought is produced 
without the summons and control of the will, now makes 
him liable to be confined as a lunatic. Formerly all this 
was called prophecy and inspiration. The finest things 
in the world have resulted from a state of fever; every 
great creation involves a rupture of equilibrium; by a law 
of nature child-birth is a violent state. 

We acknowledge indeed that Christianity is a creation 

1125 Philosotratus, "Life of Apollonius," 4: 2; 7: 11; 8: 7. Ennapius 
"Lives of the Sophists," pp. 454, 500 (ed. Didot). 

324 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

too complex to have been the work of a single man. In one 
sense, all mankind have co-operated therein. There are 
no people so circumscribed as not to receive some breath 
of influence from without. History is full of strange coin- 
cidences, which cause very remote portions of the human 
species, without communication with each other, to arrive 
simultaneously at almost identical ideas and imaginations. 
In the thirteenth century, the Latins, the Greeks, the 
Syrians, the Jews, and the Mussulmans created scholas- 
ticism, and very nearly the same scholasticism from York 
to Samarcand; in the fourteenth century every one in Italy, 
in Persia, and in India yielded to a taste for mystical alle- 
gory; in the sixteenth, art was developed in a very similar 
manner in Italy, and at the court of the Great Moguls, 
without St. Thomas, Barhebraeus, the rabbis of Narbonne, 
or the Motecallemhi of Bagdad having known each other, 
without Dante and Petrarch having seen any sufi, without 
any pupil of the schools of Perouse or of Florence having 
visited Delhi. One might say that there are great moral 
influences running through the world like epidemics, with- 
out distinction of frontiers or race. The interchange of 
ideas in the human species does not operate solely by books 
or direct instruction. Jesus was ignorant of the very name 
of Buddha, of Zoroaster, of Plato; he had read no Greek 
book, no Buddhist Sudra, yet notwithstanding there was in 
him more than one element, which, without his suspecting 
it, emanated from Buddhism, Parseeism, or the Greek 
wisdom. All this came through secret channels and by that 
kind of sympathy which exists between the different parts 
of mankind. The great man, on the one hand, receives all 
from his age; on the other, he governs his age. To show 
that the religion founded by Jesus was the natural conse- 
quence of what had preceded it, is in no way to diminish 
its excellence, but only to prove that it had a reason for 
325 



LIFE OF JESUS 

its existence, and that it was legitimate — in other words, 
that it was in conformity with the instincts and needs of 
the heart in a given period. 

Is it more just to say that Jesus owes all to Judaism, 
and that his greatness is only that of the Jewish people? 
No one is more disposed than myself to accord a high 
place to this unique people, whose particular gift seems to 
have been to contain in its midst the extremes of good and 
evil. No doubt Jesus came from Judaism; but he came 
from it as Socrates came from the schools of the sophists, 
as Luther came from the Middle Ages, as Lamennais from 
Catholicism, as Rousseau from the eighteenth century. A 
man is of his age and of his race even when he reacts 
against his age and his race. Far from Jesus having 
carried Judaism forward, he represents the rupture with 
the Jewish spirit. Even supposing that, in this respect, 
his thought may lend itself to some ambiguity, the general 
direction of Christianity after him permits no miscon- 
ception. The tendency of Christianity has been to move 
farther and farther from Judaism. It will become perfect 
by returning to Jesus, but certainly not by returning to 
Judaism. The great originality of the founder remains 
then undiminished; his glory admits none to share it legiti- 
mately. 

Undoubtedly circumstances greatly aided the success of 
this extraordinary revolution ; but circumstances only sup- 
port that which is just and true. Every branch of human 
development has its privileged epoch, in which it attains 
perfection without effort by a kind of spontaneous instinct. 
No labour of reflection could succeed in afterwards pro- 
ducing the masterpieces which nature creates at such mo- 
ments by inspired geniuses. What the golden age of 
Greece was for secular art and literature, the age of Jesus 
was for religion. Jewish society exhibited the most ex- 
326 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

traordinary moral and intellectual state which the human 
species has ever passed through. It was indeed one of 
those divine hours in which great things come to pass by 
the co-operation of a thousand hidden forces, in which 
great souls find a flood of admiration and sympathy to 
sustain them. The world, delivered from the extremely 
narrow tyranny of small municipal republics, enjoyed 
great liberty. Roman despotism did not make itself felt 
disastrously until much later; and it was moreover always 
less oppressive in distant provinces than in the centre of 
the empire. Our petty preventive interferences (far more 
destructive than death to things spiritual) did not exist. 
Jesus, during three years, was able to lead a life which, in 
our societies, would have brought him twenty times before 
the magistrates. The laws now in force regarding the 
illegal exercise of medicine would alone have sufficed to 
cut short his career. The sceptical dynasty of the Herods, 
on the other hand, paid little attention to religious move- 
ments ; under the Asmoneans, Jesus would probably have 
been arrested at the outset. In such a state of society a 
reformer risked only death; and death is a gain to those 
who labour for the future. Imagine Jesus condemned to 
bear the burden of his divinity until his sixtieth or 
seventieth year, losing his heavenly fire, wearing himself 
out little by little under the necessities of an unparalleled 
mission ! Everything favours those who are marked for 
special destiny; they go on to glory by a kind of invincible 
impulse and command of fate. 

This sublime being, who, day by day, still presides over 
the destiny of the world, we may call divine, not in the 
sense that Jesus has absorbed all divinity, or has been 
identical with it, but in the sense that Jesus is he who has 
caused his fellow-men to make the greatest step towards 
the divine. Mankind in its totality offers to view an as- 
327 



LIFE OF JESUS 

semblage of low and egoistic beings only superior to the 
animal in that their selfishness is more reflective. But from 
the midst of this uniform vulgarity there are columns ris- 
ing towards heaven and bearing witness to a nobler destiny. 
Jesus is the highest of these columns which show to man 
whence he comes and whither he must go. In him was 
concentrated all that is good, all that is lofty in our nature. 
He was not sinless; he conquered these same passions that 
we fight against; no angel of God comforted him save his 
own good conscience; no Satan tempted him save that 
which every man bears in his heart. Just as many of his 
great qualities have been lost to us through the intellectual 
failings of his disciples, so it is probable that many of his 
faults have been concealed. But never has any man so 
much as he made the interests of humanity predominate in 
his life over the pettiness of self-love. Unreservedly 
bound to his mission, he subordinated all things to that mis- 
sion so entirely that, towards the end of his life, the uni- 
verse no longer existed for him. It was by this intensity 
of heroic will that he conquered heaven. There never was 
a man, Sakyamauni perhaps excepted, who has to this de- 
gree trampled under foot, family, the joys of the world, 
and all temporal cares. Jesus lived only for his Father 
and for the divine mission which he believed himself fated 
to fulfil. 

As for us, eternal children, fated to be powerless as we 
are, we who labour without reaping, we who will never see 
the fruit of that which we have sown, let us bow down 
before these demi-gods. They were able to do that which 
we cannot do; to create, to affirm, to act. Will great 
originality be born again, or will the world be content 
henceforth to follow the paths opened by the bold creators 
of distant ages? We know not. But whatever the un- 
expected phenomena of the future, Jesus will never be 
328 



NATURE OF WORK OF JESUS 

surpassed. His worship will constantly renew its youth; 
the legend of his life will bring ceaseless tears, his suffer- 
ings will soften the best hearts; all the ages will proclaim 
that, amongst the sons of men, none has been born who is 
greater than Jesus. 



329 



TO THE PURE SOUL OF MY 

SISTER HENRIETTE, 

WHO DIED AT BYBLOS, 24TH OF SEPTEMBER, 186l. 

In the bosom of God, where you are now at rest, do you 
remember those long days at Ghazir, where, alone with you, 
I wrote these pages which drew their inspiration from the 
places we had visited together? Sitting silent by my side, 
you read over every page and copied it as soon as written; 
at our feet stretched the sea, the villages, the ravines, the 
mountains. When the overpowering light of day had given 
place to the unnumbered host of the stars, your cautious 
doubts and subtle questions led me back to the sublime 
object of our common thoughts. One day you told me that 
you would love this book, because it had been written with 
you, and because it was after your own heart. If, at times, 
you feared for it the narrow judgments of the man of 
frivolous mind, you were always full of assurance that 
souls truly religious would end by finding pleasure in it. 
In the midst of these sweet meditations the Angel of Death 
smote us both with his wing; the sleep of fever seized 
us at the self-same hour; I awoke alone! Now you sleep 
in the land of Adonis, near holy Byblos and the sacred 
waters whither the women of the ancient mysteries were 
wont to come and mingle their tears. O my good genius, 
reveal to me whom you loved, these truths that have king- 
ship over death, that shield us from the dread of it, that 
make it almost beloved! 



330 



INTRODUCTION 

TREATING PRINCIPALLY OF THE ORIGINAL DOCUMENTS OF 
THIS HISTORY 

A history of the " Origins of Christianity " should in- 
clude all that obscure and (so to speak) subterranean period 
which extends from the earliest beginnings of this religion 
to the time when its existence becomes a public fact;, well 
known,, apparent to every eye. Such a history would con- 
sist of four parts. The first, which I now present to the 
public, treats of the particular fact which was the starting 
point of the new religion, and is wholly filled with the 
sublime personality of the Founder. The second would 
treat of the Apostles and their immediate disciples ; or, 
more strictly, of the revolutions which took place in reli- 
gious thought in the first two generations of Christianity. 
This would end about the year 100, when the last friends of 
Jesus were just dead, and when all the books of the New 
Testament had almost assumed the form in which we now 
read them. The third would set forth the state of Chris- 
tianity under the Antonines. We should observe it slowly 
unfolding, and waging almost constant war against the 
empire, which in turn, being at that moment perfect 
in its complex administration and governed by philos- 
ophers, contends against the growing sect as a secret and 
theocratic society, obstinately disowning and continually 
undermining the supreme authority. This part would em- 
brace the whole of the second century. The fourth and 
331' 



LIFE OF JESUS 

last part would show the progress of Christianity from the 
time of the Syrian emperors. We should see the elaborate 
structure created by the Antonines crumbling away: the 
decay of ancient civilisation irrevocable, and Christianity 
profiting by its ruin; Syria conquering the entire West, 
and Jesus, with the gods and deified sages of Asia, taking 
possession of a society for which philosophy and a purely 
civil government are no longer enough. It is then that the 
religious ideas of the races settled upon the coasts of the 
Mediterranean undergo a great change. Eastern religions 
everywhere take the lead; Christianity, having become a 
very powerful church, forgets utterly its dreams of a 
millennium, breaks its last connections with Judaism, and 
passes entirely into the Greek and Roman world. The 
strifes and the literary labours of the third century, which 
now stand out in open day, would be described only in out- 
line. Still more briefly I should relate the persecutions of 
the early years of the fourth century, the last effort of the 
empire to return to those old principles which wholly re- 
fused to religious associations a place in the state. Finally, 
the change of policy which under Constantine inverted the 
position and made of the most free and most spontaneous 
religious movement an official worship subject to state 
control and in its turn persecutor, would need only to be 
foreshadowed. 

I do not know whether I shall have life and strength 
to fill out so vast a plan. I shall be satisfied if, after writ- 
ing the Life of Jesus, it is given to me to relate, as I under- 
stand it, the history of the Apostles; the condition of the 
Christian conscience during the weeks which immediately 
succeeded the death of Jesus; the formation of the cycle 
of legends touching the resurrection; the first acts of the 
church in Jerusalem; the life of Saint Paul; the crisis at 
the time of Nero; the appearance of the Apocalypse; the 
332 



INTRODUCTION 

ruin of Jerusalem; the foundation of the Hebrew-Christian 
sects of Batansea; the compilation of the Gospels, and the 
rise of the great schools of Asia Minor. Everything pales 
by the side of that marvellous first century. By a pecu- 
liarity rare in history, we see much better what passed in 
the Christian world from the year 50 to 75, than from the 
year 80 to 150. 

The plan upon which this history proceeds prevents the 
introduction into the text of long critical dissertations upon 
controverted points. An unbroken series of notes puts the 
reader in a position to verify in their original sources all 
the propositions in the text. These notes are strictly limited 
to citations at first hand, — I mean, to the indication of the 
original passages upon which each assertion or conjecture 
rests. I am aware that to persons little trained in these 
studies many other explanations would have been necessary ; 
but it is not my habit to do over again what has once been 
done and well done. To cite only books written in French, 
those who will consult the works named below, 1126 which are 
for the most part excellent, will find explained in them a 
multitude of points upon which I have had to be very 
succinct. In particular, the detailed criticism of the Gospel 
texts has been done by Strauss in a manner which leaves 

1126 A. Revelle: Etudes critiques sur VEvangile de St. Matthieu, 
Leyden, 1862. E. Reuss: Histqire de la theologie chretienne au Steele 
apostolique; Hist, du canon des Ecritures saintes dans VEglise chretienne 
Strasburg, 1860, 1862. M. Nicolas: Des doctrines religieuses des Juifs 
pendant les deux siecles anterieurs a fere chretienne; Etudes critiques 
sur la Bible (N. T.), Paris, 1860, 1864. D. F. Strauss: Vie de Jesus 
(tr. by M. Littre); Nouvelle Vie de Jesus (tr. by Nefftzer and Dollfus), 
Paris, 1856, 1864. G, d'Eichtak Les Evangiles, Ptie. 1; Examen crit. 
et compar. des trois premiers Evangiles, Paris, 1863. T. Colani: 
J.-C. et les Croyances messianiques de son temps, Strasburg and Paris, 
1854. A. Stap: Etudes hist, et crit. sur les origines du Christianisme, 
Paris, 1866. R. de Liessol, Etudes sur la biogr. evang., London, 1854. 
Revue de theol. et de phil. chretienne, 1850-57; Nouvelle Rev. de theol., 
1858-62: 3d ser., from 1863, Strasburg and Paris. 



LIFE OF JESUS 

little to be desired. Though he may at first have been 
deceived in his theory regarding the authorship of the 
Gospels, 1127 and though his book, in my opinion, has the 
fault of keeping far too closely on theological and far too 
little on historic ground, 1128 it is indispensable, if one would 
understand the motives which have guided me in a multi- 
tude of details, to follow the argument (always judicious, 
though sometimes a little subtle) of his book, which has 
been so well translated by my learned co-worker, M. 
Littre. 

In respect of ancient testimony, I believe I have not 
overlooked any source of information. Not to mention a 
multitude of scattered data, we still have five great col- 
lections of writings respecting Jesus and the times in which 
he lived. These are: first, the Gospels and the New Testa- 
ment writings in general; second, the compositions called 
the "Apocrypha of the Old Testament;" third, the works 
of Philo; fourth, those of Josephus; fifth, the Talmud. 
The writings of Philo have the inestimable advantage of 
showing us the thoughts which in the time of Jesus stirred 
souls occupied with great religious questions. Philo lived, 
it is true, in quite a different sphere of Judaism from Jesus ; 
yet, like him, he was quite free from the Pharisaic spirit 
which reigned at Jerusalem. Philo is, in truth, the elder 
brother of Jesus. He was sixty-two years of age when 

1127 The important results obtained on this point have all been acquired 
since the first edition of Strauss's work; while in his successive editions 
the learned critic has done justice to them with great candour. 

ins There is hardly need to remark that not a word in Strauss's book 
justifies the strange and absurd calumny by which it has been attempted 
to discredit, among superficial readers, a work so convenient, exact, 
thoughtful, and conscientious, though in its general views hurt by a too 
rigid system. Not only Strauss has never denied the existence of Jesus, 
but every page of his book implies that existence. What is true is that 
the author supposes the individuality of Jesus to be more nearly effaced, 
and so lost to us, than perhaps it is in fact. 



INTRODUCTION 

the prophet of Nazareth had reached the highest point of 
his activity, and he survived him at least ten years. How 
unfortunate that the accidents of Philo's life did not direct 
his steps into Galilee! What would he not have taught 
us ! 

Josephus, who wrote chiefly for the Pagans, has not the 
same sincerity of style. His meagre accounts of Jesus, 
John the Baptist, and Judas the Gaulonite are dry and 
colourless. We feel that he seeks to represent these move- 
ments^ so profoundly Jewish in character and spirit, in a 
form which would be intelligible to Greeks and Romans. 
Taken as a whole,, I believe the passage in regard to Jesus 
to be authentic. It is perfectly in the style of Josephus; 
and if that historian mentioned Jesus at all, it is just in 
this manner that he would have spoken of him. We feel, 
however, that the hand of a Christian has retouched the 
fragment, adding to it words without which it would have 
been well nigh blasphemous ; 1129 also abridging and modify- 
ing some expressions. 1130 It is necessary to remember that 
Josephus owed his literary fortune to the Christians, who 
adopted his writings as essential documents of their sacred 
history. It is probable that in the second century they 
circulated an edition of them corrected according to Chris- 
tian ideas. At all events, that which constitutes the im- 
mense interest of the books of Josephus in respect of our 
present subject is the vivid light they throw on the times. 
Thanks to this Jewish historian, Herod, Herodias, Antipas, 
Philip, Annas, Caiaphas, and Pilate are personages whom, 
so to speak, we touch, and see living before us with a vivid 
personality. 

1129 « jf ft j s permitted to call hiin man." 

ii3o I ns tead of 6 xpi&Tbs ovros fiv, it was probably xP l(Tr ^ s oiros £\4yeTo. 
Cf. Antiquities, 20, 9: 4. Origen, In Matt. 10: 17; Contra Celsum, 1: 47, 
2: 13. 

SS5 



LIFE OF JESUS 

The Apocrypha of the Old Testament, especially the 
Jewish portion of the Sibylline Poems, the Book of Enoch, 
the Assumption of Moses, the Fourth Book of Esdras, the 
Apocalypse of Baruch, together with the Book of Daniel 
(which is also itself a real Apocrypha), possess a primary 
importance in the history of the development of the mes- 
sianic theories, and in the understanding of the conceptions 
of Jesus regarding the kingdom of God. 1131 The Book of 
Enoch, in particular, and the Assumption of Moses were 
much read in the circle of Jesus. 1132 Some expressions im- 
puted to Jesus by the Synoptics are presented in the epistle 
attributed to Saint Barnabas as belonging to Enoch, — 
ws Eva>x Aeyci. 1133 It is very difficult to determine the date 
of the different sections of which the book attributed to 
that patriarch is comjDosed. None of them are certainly 
anterior to the year 150 B.C.: some of them may even have 
been written by a Christian pen. The section containing 
the discourses called " Similitudes," and extending from 
chapter xxxvii. to chapter lxxi., is suspected of being a 
Christian work. But this has not been proved. I am in- 
clined to think that the Gospels contain allusions to this 
portion of " Enoch," or at least to similar passages (see 

1131 On this subject may be consulted Alexandre, Carmina Sibyllina 
(Paris, 1851-56); Reuss, Les Sibylles chretiennes, in the Revue de theol- 
ogie, April and May, 1861; Colani, Jesus-Christ et les croyances mes- 
sianiques, p. 16 et seq., with the works of Ewald, Dillmann, Volkmar, 
and Hilgenfeld. 

1132 Ep. of Jude, ver. 6, 14; 2 Pet. 2: 4; Test, of the 12 Patriarchs, pass.; 
Jud. 9 (see Origen, De Principiis, 3, 2: 1); Didymus Alex. (Max. Bibl. 
Vet. Pair. 4: 336). Cf. Matt. 24: 21 et seq., with Assumpt. Mosis, 
8, 10 (Hilgenfeld's ed. p. 105); and Rom. 2: 15, with the same, pp. 99, 100. 

1133 Barn. 4, 16 (Cod. Sinait., ed. Hilg., 8, 52); cf. Enoch, 89: 56 et seq.; 
Matt. 24: 22; Mark 13: 20. See other like coincidences below (p. 48, 
n.; 105, n.; 340, n.). Compare also the language of Jesus reported by 
Papias (Iren. Adv. Hcer. 5, 33: 3, 4) with Enoch 10: 19, and with Apoc. 
of Baruch, § 29 (Ceriani, Monum. Sacr. et prof. 1, 1: 80). 



INTRODUCTION 

ante, p. 204, note). Perhaps this part is merely proved 
to have been altered. Other Christian additions or revisions 
are recognisable here and there. 1135 

The collection of the Sibylline verses requires similar 
distinctions, but these are more easily established. The 
oldest part is the poem contained in Book 3, ver. 97-817; 
it appears to belong to about the year 14-0 B.C. Respecting 
the date of the Fourth Book of Esdras, everybody now is 
nearly agreed in assigning this Apocalypse to the year 
97 a.d. It has been altered by the Christians. The Apoc- 
alypse of Baruch 1136 bears great resemblance to that of 
Esdras; we find there, as in the Book of Enoch, several 
utterances imputed to Jesus. 1137 As to the Book of Daniel, 
the character of the two languages in which it is written; 
the use of Greek words ; the clear, precise, dated announce- 
ments of events which go back as far as the times of 
Antiochus Epiphanes ; the false descriptions of ancient 
Babylon; the general tone of the book, which has nothing 
suggestive of the writings of the Captivity, but on the con- 
trary corresponds, by numerous analogies, with the beliefs, 
the manners, the turn of imagination, of the epoch of the 
Seleucidae ; the apocalyptic form of the visions ; the position 
of the book in the Hebrew canon, which is outside the series 
of the Prophets; the omission of Daniel in the panegyrics 
of chapter 49 of Ecclesiasticus, in which his rank was (as 
it were) hinted at, — with many another proof, a hundred 
times deduced, — do not permit a doubt that this book is a 

ii35 rp^g p assa ge 67: 4 et seq., in which the volcanic phenomena near 
Pozzuoli are described, does not prove the entire section to be later than 
a.d. 79, the date of the great eruption of Vesuvius. Allusions to like 
phenomena appear in Rev. 9, which belongs to a.d. 68. 

1136 Lately published in a Latin translation from the Syriac by Ceriani 
(Anecd. sacr. et prof., vol. 1 fasc. 2, Milan, 1866). 

1137 See preceding notes. 

337 






LIFE OF JESUS 

product of the general exaltation produced among the Jews 
by the persecution of Antiochus. It is not in the old 
prophetic literature that it must be classed; its place is at 
the head of apocalyptic literature, as the first model of a 
kind of composition after which were to come the various 
Sibylline poems, the Book of Enoch, the Assumption of 
Moses, the Apocalypse of John, the Ascension of Isaiah, 
and the Fourth Book of Esdras. 

Hitherto, in the history of the origins of Christianity, 
the Talmud has been too much neglected. I think, with 
Geiger, that the true notion of the circumstances among 
which Jesus appeared must be sought in this strange com- 
pilation, where so much knowledge is mixed with the most 
worthless pedantry. Christian and Jewish theology have 
followed mainly two parallel paths ; the history of the one 
cannot be understood without the history of the other. 

\ Moreover, innumerable material details in the Gospels find 
their commentary in the Talmud. The vast Latin collec- 
tions of Lightfoot, Schottgen, Buxtorf, and Otho contained 
already on this point a mass of information. I have taken 
upon myself to verify in the original all the citations that 
I have made, without an exception. The assistance which 
has been given in this part of my task by M. Neubauer, a 
learned Israelite, well versed in Talmudic literature, has 
enabled me to go further, and to elucidate certain parts of 
my subject by some new illustrations. The distinction be- 
tween epochs is here very important, — the compilation of 
the Talmud extending from the year 200 to 500, or there- 
about. We have given as much precision as was possible 
in the present condition of these studies. Dates so recent 
will excite fears among persons accustomed to attach value 
i to a document only for the period in which it was written. 
V Such scruples, however, would here be out of place. Jew- 
ish teaching from the Asmonean epoch down to the second 
338 



INTRODUCTION 

century was chiefly oral. The mental habit thence result- 
ing must not be judged by the customs of an age in which 
writing is common. The Vedas, the Homeric poems, the 
ancient Arabic lays, were for centuries preserved in 
memory, and yet these compositions present a very distinct 
and delicate form. In the Talmud, on the other hand, 
the form has no value. We may add that before the 
Mishna of Juda the saint, which wiped out the recollection 
of all the others, there were several essays at compilation, 
beginning farther back, perhaps, than is commonly sup- 
posed. The style of the Talmud is that of lecture-notes; 
the editors probably did no more than to arrange under 
certain titles the enormous medley of writings which, for 
generations, had accumulated in the different schools. 

It remains for us to speak of the documents which claim 
to be biographies of the founder of Christianity and must 
naturally take the place of honour in a Life of Jesus. A 
complete treatise on the compilation of the Gospels would 
be a work of itself. Thanks to the careful research which 
for the last thirty years has been devoted to this question, 
a problem which might once have been held to be beyond 
our reach has found a solution quite sufficient for the re- 
quirements of history, though there is room still left for 
much uncertainty. We shall have occasion later on to re- 
vert to this, in view of the fact that the composition of the 
Gospels was one of the most important influences for the 
future of Christianity during the second half of the first 
century. We shall touch here only a single aspect of the 
subject, but one indispensable to the solidity of our narra- 
tive. Setting aside all that belongs to a picture of the 
apostolic times, we will inquire only to what extent data 
furnished by the Gospels can be employed in a history 
constructed on rational principles. 1138 

1138 Those desiring ampler treatment may consult, besides the works 
339 



LIFE OF JESUS 

That the Gospels are in part legendary is quite evident, 
inasmuch as they are full of miracles and of the super- 
natural; but there are legends and legends. Nobody dis- 
putes the principal features in the life of Francis of Assisi, 
although we meet the supernatural in it at every step. On 
the other hand no one gives credence to the " Life of Apol- 
lonius of Tyana," for the reason that it was written long 
after his own time, and avowedly as a pure romance. When, 
by whom, and under what conditions were the Gospels com- 
piled? This is the chief question upon which the opinion 
we are to form of their credibility depends. 

We know that each of the four Gospels bears at its head 
the name of a person well-known either in apostolic history 
or in the gospel history itself. If these titles are correct, 
it is clear that the Gospels, without ceasing to be in part 
legendary, acquire a high value, since they take us back to 
the half -century which followed the death of Jesus, and 
even in two cases to eye-witnesses of his acts. 

In the case of Luke, doubt is hardly possible. The Gos- 
pel of Luke is a studied composition, founded upon earlier 
documents. 1139 It is the work of a man who selects, prunes, 
and combines. The author of this Gospel is undoubtedly 
the same as that of the Acts of the Apostles. 1140 Now, the 
author of the Acts appears to be a companion of Paul, 1141 
an appellation which exactly fits Luke. 1142 I am aware that 

before noted, the writings of Reuss, Schiirer, Schwalb, Scholten (tr. by 
Reville), in the Revue de theologie, and of Reville in the Revue des 
Deux Mondes, May and June, 1866. 

1139 Luke 1:1-4. 

1140 Acts 1:4. 

1141 From 16: 10, forward, the writer speaks of himself as an eye- 
witness. 

1 * 42 Col. 4: 14 ; Philem. 24 ; 2 Tim. 4:11. As the name Luke (abridged 
from Lucanus) is quite rare, we have not to apprehend here one of 
those homonyms which occasion so much perplexity in questions of 
N. T. criticism. 

340 



INTRODUCTION 

more than one objection can be raised against this opinion; 
but the thing is beyond question: that the author of the 
third Gospel and of the Acts is a man belonging to the 
second apostolic generation, and this is sufficient for our 
purpose. The date of that Gospel may, however, be de- 
termined with quite enough precision by considerations 
drawn from the book itself. The twenty-first chapter of 
Luke, which is inseparable from the rest of the work, was 
certainly written after the siege of Jerusalem, but not very 
long after. 1143 We are here, then, on solid ground; for we 
have to do with a work throughout written by the same 
hand, and its unity is perfect. 

The Gospels of Matthew and Mark do not show nearly 
the same stamp of individuality. They are impersonal com- 
positions, in which the author wholly disappears. A proper 
name written at the head of such works does not count for 
much. We cannot, moreover, reason here as in the case of 
Luke. The date which belongs to a particular chapter (to 
Matthew 14, or Mark 13, for example) cannot be rigorously 
applied to these writings as a whole, for they are made up 
of fragments from epochs and sources quite distinct. In 
general, the third Gospel appears to be later than the first 
two and exhibits the character of a much more advanced 
composition. We cannot, however, conclude from this that 
the two Gospels of Mark and Matthew were in the same 
condition as we have them when Luke wrote his. These two 
works, entitled Mark and Matthew, in fact, long remained 
in a pliant condition (so to speak), and were susceptible of 
additions. On this point we have an excellent witness from 
the first half of the second century. This was Papias, 

1 1 43 See ver. 9, 20, 24, 28, 29-32, and compare 22: 36. These passages 
are the more striking, since the writer feels the peril in predictions of so 
near date, and guards against it, either by softening such passages as 
Mark 13: 14-24, 29; Matt. 24: 15-29, 33; or else by question and answer, 
as in Luke 17: 20, 21. 

341 



LIFE OF JESUS 

\ 

bishop of Hierapolis, a grave man, a traditionist, who was 
busy all his life in collecting what could be learned from 
any one about Jesus. 1144 After declaring that in such cases 
he preferred oral tradition to books, Papias mentions two 
writings on the acts and words of Christ, — first, a writing 
of Mark, the interpreter of the Apostle Peter, a short, in- 
complete composition, without chronological order, includ- 
ing narratives and discourses (X^Oivra rf TvpayBLvra), com- 
posed from the information and recollections of the 
Apostle Peter ; 1145 second, a collection of sayings ( Xoyta ) 
written in Hebrew 1146 by Matthew, " which every one has 
translated 1147 as he could." Certain it is that these two 
descriptions accord pretty well with the general tenor of 
the two books now called the " Gospel according to Mat- 
thew " and the " Gospel according to Mark," — the former 
characterised by its long discourses, the second mainly 
anecdotic, and much more exact than the other on minor 
details, brief even to dryness, the discourses meagre and 
indifferently composed. Nevertheless, that these two works 
as read by us are precisely like those read by Papias can- 
not be asserted, — first, because the composition of Matthew, 
according to Papias, was made up solely of discourses in 
Hebrew, different translations of which were in circula- 
tion; and, secondly, because the writings of Mark and of 
Matthew were to him perfectly distinct, drafted without any 

1144 In Eusebius, Hist. Eccl. 3: 39. No question can be raised as to 
the authenticity of this passage. Eusebius, in fact, far from exagger- 
ating the authority of Papias, is embarrassed by his naivete, his crude 
millenarianism, and gets out of it by treating him as a man of narrow 
mind. Compare Irenreus, Adv. Hcer., 3, 1: 1; 5, 38: 3, 4. 

1145 Papias, on this point, refers to a still older authority, that of "John 
the Elder" (see, as to this person, post, p. 356, n. 1199.) 

1140 That is, in the Semitic [Aramean] dialect. 

1147 'Hp/ATipevo-e, referring as it does to efyafSt 8ia\cKTr>\ can only mean 
"translate." A few lines before, ep/x-rjuevT'fis occurs in the sense of 
dragoman. 

342 



INTRODUCTION 

collusion, and it would seem in different languages. Now, 
in the present state of the texts, Matthew and Mark pre- 
sent parallel passages so long, and so perfectly identical, 
that we must suppose either that the final compiler of the 
first had the second before him (or vice versa), or that both 
copied from the same original. What appears most prob- 
able is that we have not the original composition of either 
Matthew or Mark; that the first two Gospels as we have 
them are adaptations, in which it was attempted to fill up 
the voids in one text from the other. In fact, every one 
wished to possess a complete copy. He whose copy con- 
tained only discourses required narrative, and vice versa. 
In this way " The Gospel according to Matthew " is found 
to have taken in nearly all the anecdotes of Mark, and "The 
Gospel according to Mark " contains -to-day many of the 
details which have come from the Logia of Matthew. Each 
writer, moreover, drew largely from the oral tradition sub- 
sisting around him. This tradition is so far from having 
been exhausted by the Gospels, that the " Acts of the Apos- 
tles " and the earliest Fathers cite many sayings of Jesus 
apparently authentic, which are not found in the Gospels 
that we possess. 

It matters little for our present purpose that we should 
press this analysis further, or attempt, on the one hand, 
to reconstruct after a fashion the original Logia of Mat- 
thew, or, on the other, to piece together the primitive story 
just as it left the pen of Mark. The Logia are doubtless 
represented in the longer discourses of Jesus, which make 
up a considerable portion of the first Gospel. These dis- 
courses, in fact, when detached from the rest, form a com- 
plete enough whole. As for the original narratives of 
Mark, the text of them seems to make its appearance now 
in the first, now in the second Gospel, but oftener in the 
second. In other words, the plan of the life of Jesus 
34,3 



LIFE OF JESUS 

in the Synoptics is founded on two original documents, — 
first, the discourses of Jesus collected by the Apostle Mat- 
thew; second^ ~the collection of anecdotes and of personal 
information which Mark committed to writing from the 
recollections of Peter. It may be said that we still possess 
these two documents, mixed with facts from another source, 
in the first two Gospels, which bear, accurately enough, the 
titles, " Gospel according to Matthew " and " Gospel ac- 
cording to Mark." 

In any case, we cannot doubt that the discourses of Jesus 
were very early reduced to writing in the Aramean tongue; 
also, that his remarkable actions were very early taken 
down. These were not texts settled and fixed dogmatically. 
Besides the Gospels which have come down to us, there 
were others claiming equally to set forth the tradition of 
eye-witnesses. 1148 Little importance was given to these 
writings, while conservatives like Papias, in the first half 
of the second century, still preferred the oral tradition. 1149 
Believing that the world was near its end, they had not 
much inclination to write books for the future ; the sole con- 
cern was to keep in their heart the living image of him 

1148 Luke 1: 1, 2; Origen, Homil. in Luc. (init.); Jerome, Comm. in 
Matt., proleg. 

1 ' 49 Papias in Eusebius, Hist-. Eccl. 3: 39. Cf . Irenseus, Adv. Hcer. 3, 2: 
3. See also concerning Poly carp in the fragment of an epistle from 
Iremeus to Flavius, preserved by Eusebius, H. E., 5: 20. 'il? ycypairrcu, 
in Barnabas Ep. chap. 4, p. 12 (ed. Hilgenfeld), applies to words found in 
Matt. 22: 14; but those words, which occur twice in Matt. (20: 16; 22: 
14), may be taken here from an apocryphal book, as is the case in 
Matt. 23: 34-36; 24: 20-28. (Cf. 4. Esd. 8: 3.) Note in the same 
chapter of Barnabas (p. 8) the singular coincidence of a passage ascribed 
to Enoch (employing the formula yeypairrai ) with Matt. 24: 22; and 
compare ypa<pi] as cited in Barn., chap. 16: (p. 52), with Enoch 89: 56. 
(See below, p. 366, n.) In the 3d ep. of Clement, chap. 2, and Justin, 
1 Apol. 67, the Synoptics are clearly cited as sacred. In 1 Tim. 5: 18 we 
have an example of a proverb (found also in Luke 10: 7), or common 
saying, cited as "scripture" (\eyci 70/) 77 ypa<p4)). This epistle, it may be 
remarked, was not written by Saint Paul. 

344 



INTRODUCTION 

whom they hoped soon again to see in the clouds. Hence 
the small authority of the Gospel texts for nearly a hundred 
years. No scruple was felt at inserting paragraphs in 
them, or combining various narratives, or filling out one 
from another. The poor man who has only one book wishes 
it to contain all that is dear to his heart. These little books 
were lent by one to another; each transcribed into the 
margin of his copy the phrases and parables he found in 
others which affected him. 1150 The loveliest thing in the 
world was thus wrought out by a process obscure and 
wholly popular. No edition possessed an absolute value. 
The two epistles attributed to Clement of Rome quote 
the sayings of Jesus with notable variations. 1151 Justin, 
who often appeals to what he calls " Memoirs of the 
Apostles/' had before him a form of written gospel a little 
different from what we have; at all events, he takes no 
pains to quote them verbally. 1152 The Gospel citations in 
the pseudo-Clementine homilies, of Ebionite origin, present 
the same character. The spirit was everything, the letter 
nothing. It is when tradition weakens, in the latter half 
of the second century, that texts bearing the names of 
apostles or apostolic men assume a decisive authority and 
obtain the force of law. Even then free compositions were 
not absolutely interdicted; following the example of Luke, 
special Gospels continued to be written by recasting at will 
the substance of older texts. 1153 

Who does not own the value of documents constructed 

ii5o Thus the touching narrative in John 8: 1-11 has always been cur- 
rent, without finding a fixed place in the accepted Gospels. 

1151 Clem. Epist. 1:13; 2: 12. 

1152 To airofiPfiKopevixaTa rcou aTro(TT6\a>v, a KaXeirai evayy4\ia. (The last 
words perhaps are interpolations.) Justin, Apol. 1: 16, 17, 33, 34, 38, 45, 
66, 67, 77, 78; Tryph. 10, 17, 41, 43, 51, 53, 69, 70, 76-78, 88, 100, 101, 
108, 111, 120, 125, 132. 

1153 See, concerning Tatian's Gospel in Theodoret, Hceret. Fab., 1: 30. 

345 



LIFE OF JESUS 

thus out of the tender recollections and simple narratives 
of the first two Christian generations, still full of the strong 
impression produced by the revered founder, which seems 
to have long survived him? Let us add that these Gospels 
seem to have proceeded from those branches of the Christian 
family which were most closely related to Jesus. The final 
labour of compilation of the text which bears the name of 
Matthew apjDears to have been done in one of the countries 
situated to the northeast of Palestine, — such as Gaulonitis, 
Auranitis, and Batanaea, where many Christians took refuge 
at the time of the Roman war, where were still to be found 
in the second century relatives of Jesus, 1154 and where the 
first Galilean impulse was longer felt than elsewhere. 

So far we have spoken only of the three Gospels called 
the Synoptics. It now remains to speak of the fourth, 
which bears the name of John. Here the question is much 
more difficult. Polycarp, the most intimate disciple of 
John, who often quotes the Synoptics in his epistle to the 
Philippians, makes no allusion to the fourth Gospel. Pa- 
pias, who was equally attached to the school of John, and 
who, if he had not been his hearer, as Irenaeus holds, had 
associated a great deal with his immediate disciples, — 
Papias, who had eagerly collected all the oral accounts 
relative to Jesus, does not say a word of a " Life of Jesus " 
written by the Apostle John. 1155 If such a mention had 
been found in his work, Eusebius, who puts in relief every- 
thing that bears on the literary history of the apostolic 

1154 Julius Africanus in Eusebius, H. E., 1: 7. 

1155 Eusebius, H. E., 3: 39. One would be tempted to find the fourth 
Gospel in the "narrations" of Aristion or the traditions of him whom 
Papias calls "John the Elder." But Papias seems to offer these narra- 
tions and traditions as unwritten. If the extracts given by him were 
from that Gospel, Eusebius would have said so. Besides, the views of 
Papias, so far as we know them, are those of a millenarian, a believer in 
the Apocalypse, not at all one of the school of theology found in the 
fourth Gospel. 

34,6 



INTRODUCTION 

age, would undoubtedly have mentioned it. 1156 Justin, per- 
haps, knew the fourth Gospel; 1157 but he certainly did not 
regard it as the work of the Apostle John, since he ex- 
pressly designates that apostle as the author of the 
Apocalypse, and takes not the least account of the fourth 
Gospel in the numerous facts of the life of Jesus which 
he extracts from the " Memoirs of the Apostles." More 
than this, upon all the points where the Synoptics and the 
fourth Gospel differ he adopts opinions at complete vari- 
ance with the latter. 1158 This is all the more surprising, see- 
ing that the dogmatic tendencies of the fourth Gospel must 
have marvellously suited Justin. 

The same remarks apply to the pseudo-Clementine 
Homilies. The words of Jesus quoted by that book are 
of the synoptic type. In two or three places 1159 there are, 
it would seem, facts borrowed from the fourth Gospel. 

1156 Let it not be said that Papias says nothing of Luke or Paul, and 
yet their writings were known in his day. Papias must have been an 
opponent of Paul, and he may not have known the composition of Luke, 
which was made in Rome for quite another Christian circle. But how, 
living at Hierapolis, in the very heart of the Johannine school, could he 
have ignored the Gospel written by such a master ? Nor let it be said, 
that, as to Polycarp (4: 14) and Theophilus (4: 24), Eusebius does not 
set forth all the citations made by them from the N. T. scriptures. The 
special aim of the chapter (3: 39) regarding Papias made a mention of 
the fourth Gospel almost inevitable, if Eusebius found it in his writings. 

1157 A few passages — Apol. 1: 32, 61; Tryph. 88 — lead one to think so. 
The theory of the Logos in Justin is not such that we are forced to 
suppose it to be taken from the fourth Gospel. 

1158 See references in note, p. 345. Observe especially Apol. 1: 14 
et seq., making it plain that Justin either did not know the discourses 
in John, or did not regard them as representing the teaching of Jesus. 

1159 Homil. 3: 52; 11: 26; 19: 22. It is to be noted that the citations 
seemingly made from the fourth Gospel by Justin and the writer of the 
Homilies coincide in part with one another, and show the same depart- 
ures from the canonical text. (Compare with the above citations Justin, 
Apol. 1: 22, 61; Trypho, 69.) From this we might infer that the two 
writers consulted, not the fourth Gospel, but a source from which the 
writer of that Gospel may have drawn. 

347 



LIFE OF JESUS 

But the author of the Homilies certainly does not accord to 
that Gospel an apostolic authority, since on many points 
he puts himself in direct contradiction with it. It appears 
that Marcion (about 140) could not have known this Gos- 
pel, or else attributed to it no importance as an inspired 
book. 1160 This Gospel accorded so well with his ideas that 
if he had known it he would have adopted it eagerly, and 
would not have been obliged, so as to have an ideal Gospel, 
to make a corrected edition of Luke. Finally, the apocry- 
phal Gospels which may be referred to the second century, 
like the Protevangelion of James, the Gospel of Thomas 
the Israelite, 1161 work upon the synoptic canvas, but they 
take no account of the Gospel of John. 

The intrinsic difficulties which result from the reading 
of the fourth Gospel itself are not less forcible. How is 
it that, by the side of information so precise, and in places 
felt to be that of eye-witnesses, we find discourses totally 
different from those of Matthew? How is it that the Gos- 
pel in question does not contain a parable or an exorcism? 
How can we explain — side by side with a general plan of 
the life of Jesus, which seems in some respects more sat- 
isfactory and more exact than that of the Synoptics — those 
singular passages in which one perceives a dogmatic inter- 
est peculiar to the author, ideas most foreign to Jesus, and 
sometimes indications which put us on our guard as to the 
good faith of the narrator? How is it, finally, that by the 
side of views the most pure, the most just, the most 
truly evangelical, we find those blemishes which we would 
rather look upon as the interpolation of an ardent sectary? 

1160 The passages of Tertullian, De came Christi, 3, and Adv. Marc. 
4: 3, 5, prove nothing against what is here said. 

1161 The apocryphal "Acts of Pilate" in our possession, which assume 
the fourth Gospel, are nowise what Justin (Apol. 1: 35, 48) and Ter- 
tullian (Apol. 20) speak of. It is even likely that the two Fathers speak 
of these Acts only from hearsay, and not as having read them. 

348 



INTRODUCTION 

Is it indeed John, the son of Zebedee, the brother of James 
(who is not once mentioned in the fourth Gospel), who 
can have written in Greek those lectures of abstract meta- 
physics, to which the Synoptics offer no analogy? Is this 
the essentially Judaising author of the Apocalypse/ 162 who, 
in so few years, has divested himself to this extent of his 
style and of his ideas ? Can an " Apostle of the Circum- 
cision " 1163 have composed a work more hostile to Judaism 
than the whole of Saint Paul's, a work in which the word 
" Jew " is almost equivalent to " enemy of Jesus " ? 1164 Is 
it indeed he, whose example was invoked by the partisans 
of the celebration of the Jewish passover in favour of their 
opinion, 1165 who could speak with a sort of disdain of the 
" Feasts of the Jews " and of the " Passover of the 
Jews" ? 1166 All this is important. For my part, I reject 
the idea that the fourth Gospel could have been written 
by the pen of a quondam Galilean fisherman. But that, 
taken all in all, this Gospel may have proceeded, about the 
end of the first century or the beginning of the second, 
from one of the schools of Asia Minor attached to John, 
that it presents to us a version of the life of the Master 
worthy of high consideration and often of preference, is 
indeed rendered probable, both by external evidence and 
by examining the document under consideration. 

In the first place, no one doubts that about the year 170 
the fourth Gospel did exist. At that date there broke out 
at Laodicea on the Lycus a controversy relative to the Pass- 

1162 Compare Justin, Trypho, 81. The Apocalypse is of the year 68. 
Supposing JotmJ^n years younger than Jesus, he must have been then 
about 60. 

1163 Gal. 2: 9. The words in Rev. 2: 2, 14, seem to contain a hostile 
reference to Paul. 

1164 See almost all the passages containing the word 'lou5a?oi. 
lies p ly Cra tes in Eusebius, H. E., 5: 24. 

1166 John 2: 6, 13; 5: 11; 6: 4; 11: 55; 19: 42. 






LIFE OF JESUS 

over, in which this Gospel played an important part. 1107 
Apollinaris, 1168 Athenagoras, 1169 Polycrates, 1170 the author of 
the epistle to the Churches of Vienne and of Lyons/ 171 
professed already in regard to the alleged narrative of 
John the opinion which soon became orthodox. Theophilus 
of Antioch (about 180) said positively that the Apostle 
John was the author of it ; 1172 Irenaeus 1173 and the Canon of 
Muratori 1174 attest the complete triumph of this Gospel, 
a triumph after which there was no longer any doubt. 

Now, if, about the year 170, the fourth Gospel appeared 
as a writing of the Apostle John invested with full author- 
ity, is it not evident that at this date it was not a thing 
of yesterday ? Tatian 1175 and the author of the epistle to 
Diognetus 1176 seem indeed to have made use of it. The 
part played by this Gospel in Gnosticism, and especially 

the system of Valentinus, 1177 in Montanism, 1178 and in the 
controversy of the Alogi, 1179 is not less remarkable, and 
shows that from the last half of the second century this 
Gospel was included in every controversy, and served as 
a corner-stone for the development of dogma. The school 

1167 Eusebius, H. E., 4: 26; 5: 23-25. Chron. Pasc. p. 6 et sea. (ed. 
DuCange.) 1168 Ibid. 

1169 Legatio pro Christ. 10. 117 ° In Euseb. H. E. 5: 42. 

1171 In. Euseb. H. E. 5: 1. 1172 Ad Autolychum, 2: 22. 

1173 Adv. Hcer., 2, 22: 5; 3, 1. Cf. Euseb. H.E.5: 8. 

1174 Line 9 et seq. 

1175 Adv. Grcec, 5, 7. It is, however, doubtful whether the Gospel 
Harmony composed by Tatian included the fourth Gospel : the title 
Diatessaron probably did not originate with Tatian himself (cf. Euseb. 
H. E. 4: 29; Theodoret, Haeret. Fab. 1: 20; Epiphan. Adv. Hcer. 46: 1; 
Fabricius Cod. Apocr. 1: 378). 

1176 Chaps. 6-9, 11. The passages of the Ignatian epistles in which 
allusions to the fourth Gospel have been thought to exist are of doubtful 
genuineness. The authority of Celsus, sometimes alleged, is of no ac- 
count, since Celsus was a contemporary of Origen. 

1177 Irenaeus, Adv. Hcer., 1, 3: 6; 3, 11: 7. Hippol. Phil., 6, 2: 29; 
7, 1: 22, 27. »" Iren. Adv. Hcer. 3, 11: 9. 

1179 Epiphan. Adv. Hcer. 1, 1: 3, 4, 28; 54: 1. 

350 



INTRODUCTION 

of John is the one whose progress is the most apparent 
during the second century ; 1180 Irenaeus proceeded from the 
school of John, and between him and the Apostle there was 
only Polycarp. Now, Irenaeus has not a doubt as to the 
authenticity of the fourth Gospel. Let us add that the 
first epistle attributed to John is, according to all appear- 
ances, by the same author as the fourth Gospel ; 1181 the 
epistle seems to have been known to Polycarp ; 1182 it was, 
it is said, cited by Papias ; 1183 Irenaeus recognised it as 
John's. 1184 

But if now we seek light in the reading of the work it- 
self, we shall remark, first, that the author therein always 
speaks as an eye-witness. He wishes to pass for the 
Apostle John, and it is clearly seen that he writes in the 
interest of that Apostle. In every page he betrays the 
design of fortifying the authority of the son of Zebedee, 
of showing that he was the favourite of Jesus, and the most 
clear-sighted of his disciples ; 1185 that on all solemn occa- 
sions (at the Supper, at Calvary, at the Tomb) he held the 
chief place. The relations of John with Peter, which were 
on the whole fraternal, although not excluding a certain 
rivalry ; 1186 the hatred, on the other hand, of Judas, 1187 — a 

1180 Iren. Epist. ad Florinum (Euseb. H. E. 5: 26; 3: 39). 

1181 1 John 1: 3, 5. The style of the epistle is very like that of the 
Gospel, with the same favourite turns of expression. 

1182 Ad Phil. 7: cf. 1 John 4: 2, 3; but this may be a mere coincidence, 
the two being of the same school and period. The genuineness of the 
epistle of Polycarp is disputed. 

1183 Eusebius, H . E. 3: 39. It would be strange if Papias, who did 
not know the Gospel, knew the epistle. Eusebius only says that Papias 
makes use of evidence taken from this epistle. All turns on a few 
words which Eusebius (a bad judge of a question in criticism) may 
have believed to be borrowed from the epistle. 

1184 Adv. Hoer. 3, 16: 5, 8; cf. Euseb. H. E. 5: 8. 

1185 John 13: 23-26; 18: 15, 16; 19: 26; 20: 2-5; 21: 7, 20-24. 

1186 John 18: 15, 16; 20: 2-6; 21: 15-19 (cf. 1: 35, 40, 41). 

1187 John 6: 71; 12: 6; 13: 21-26. 

351 



LIFE OF JESUS 

hatred probably anterior to the betrayal, — seem to break 
through here and there. At times one is constrained to 
believe that John in his old age read the gospel accounts 
then current and on the one hand remarked various inac- 
curacies/ 188 on the other was chafed at seeing that in the 
history of Christ he was not accorded an important enough 
place; that then he began to relate a multitude of things 
better known to him than to the others, with the intention 
of showing that in many instances, where Peter only was 
mentioned, he had figured with and before him. 1189 Even 
during the life of Jesus these petty sentiments of jealousy 
had been betrayed between the sons of Zebedee and the 
other disciples. 1190 Since the death of James, his brother, 
John remained the sole inheritor of the intimate memories 
which the two apostles, by common consent, had shared. 
Those might be preserved in the circle of John; and, as 
the ideas of the times in the matter of literary good faith 
differed much from ours, a disciple, or rather one of those 
numerous sectaries, already half -Gnostic, who from the end 
of the first century, in Asia Minor, began to modify greatly 
the idea of Christ, 1191 might be tempted to take the pen for 
the apostle, and to make on his own account a free revision 
of his Gospel. It would cost him no more to speak in the 
name of John than it cost the pious author of the Second 
Epistle of Peter to write a letter in the name of the latter. 
Identifying himself with the beloved disciple of Jesus, 
he espoused all his sentiments, even his littlenesses. Hence 

1188 The way in which "John the Elder" expressed himself in the 
Gospel of Mark (Papias in Euseb. H. E. 3: 39) implies a friendly view of 
it, or rather a sort of apology, seeming to imply that the disciples of 
John had a better view of their own on the same point. 

1189 Compare John 18: 15, 16 with Matt. 26: 58; John 20: 2-6 with 
Mark 16: 7. See also John 1: 35-39; 13: 24, 25; 21: 7, 20-24. 

1190 See ante d. 116. 

1191 See Col.' 2: 8, 18. 1 Tim. 1: 4; 6: 20. 2 Tim. 2: 18. 

352 



INTRODUCTION 

this perpetual effort of the supposed author to recall that 
he is the last surviving eye-witness/ 192 and the pleasure he 
takes in relating circumstances which could be known only 
to him. Hence so many petty minute details which would 
fain pass as the commentaries of an annotator, — " it was 
the sixth hour;" "it was night;" "that man was called 
Malchus ; " " they had lighted a fire of coals, for it was 
cold;" "the coat was without seam." 1193 Hence, finally, 
the bad arrangement of the compilation, its irregular flow, 
the disj ointedness of the earlier chapters, — so many in- 
explicable features if we go on the supposition that our 
Gospel is a mere theological treatise without historic value, 
yet perfectly comprehensible if we regard it as the recol- 
lections of an old man, arranged without the assistance of 
him from whom they proceeded, — sometimes of surprising 
freshness, and again strangely altered. 

An important distinction, in fact, is to be remarked in 
the Gospel of John. This Gospel, on the one hand, pre- 
sents a sketch of the life of Jesus which differs consider- 
ably from that of the Synoptics. On the other, it puts into 
the mouth of Jesus discourses whose tone, style, character, 
and doctrines have nothing in common with the sayings 
reported in the Synoptics. In this latter view the difference 
is such that one must make an out-and-out choice. If Jesus 
spoke as Matthew would have us believe, he could not have 
spoken in the manner represented by John. Between these 
two authorities no one has hesitated, or will ever hesitate. 
A thousand miles apart from the simple, disinterested, and 
impersonal tone of the Synoptics, the Gospel of John shows 
at every step the prepossession of the apologist, the mental 
reservations of the sectary, the desire to establish a point 

1192 John 1: 14; 19: 35; 21: 24 et seq. (Cf. 1 Ep. of John 1: 3, 5.) 

1193 Some of these points can have no real value: 1: 40; 2: 6; 4: 52; 
5: 5, 19; 6: 9, 19; 21: 41. 

353 



LIFE OF JESUS 

and to convict his adversaries. 1194 It was not by pretentious 
tirades., clumsy, badly written, appealing little to the moral 
sense, that Jesus founded his divine work. Even though 
Papias had not informed us that Matthew wrote the say- 
ings of Jesus in their original tongue, the natural tone, the 
indescribable good faith, the incomparable charm of the 
discourses contained in the Synoptic Gospels, their pro- 
foundly Hebraic turn of thought, the analogies they pre- 
sent to the sayings of the Jewish doctors of the period, their 
perfect harmony with the Galilean nature, — all these char- 
acteristics, compared with the obscure Gnosticism and the 
distorted metaphysics which fill the discourses of John, 
speak loudly enough. This does not mean that there are 
not to be found in the discourses of John some marvellous 
gleams, some traits that really proceed from Jesus. 1195 
But the mystical tone of these discourses corresponds in 
nothing to the character of the eloquence of Jesus, such as 
it is pictured to us in the Synoptics. A new spirit breathes 
through them; Gnosticism has already found a footing; 
the Galilean era of the kingdom of God is at an end; the 
hope of the near advent of Jesus is farther off; we enter 
the arid realm of metaphysics, the darkness of abstract 
dogma. The spirit of Jesus is not here; and if the son of 
Zebedee has indeed traced those pages, we must suppose 
that in writing them he had forgotten the Lake of Gen- 
nesareth and the charming conversations he had heard upon 
its banks. 

One circumstance, moreover, which proves indeed that 
the discourses reported by the fourth Gospel are not bits 
of history, but that they ought to be regarded as composi- 

1194 See, for example, chaps. 9 and 11; and remark especially the 
strange effect of such passages as 19: 35; 20: 31; 21: 20-25, contrasted 
with the absence of like reflections in the Synoptics. 

1195 For instance, 4: 1-24; 15: 12-17. Many sayings reported in the 
fourth Gospel are found also in the Synoptics (12: 46; 15: 20). 

354> 



INTRODUCTION 

tions designed to cover with the authority of Jesus certain 
doctrines dear to the author, is their complete harmony with 
the intellectual condition of Asia Minor at the time they 
were written. Asia Minor was then the theatre of a 
strange movement of syncretic philosophy; abundant germs 
of Gnosticism existed there already. Cerinthus, a con- 
temporary of John, said that an iEon named Christos was \y 
united by baptism to the man named Jesus, and had sepa- 
rated from him on the cross. 1196 Some of the disciples of 
John appear to have drunk deeply from these strange 
springs. Can we affirm that the apostle himself had not 
been subject to the same influences, 1197 that he did not ex- 
perience something like the change wrought in Paul, of 
which the Epistle to the Colossians is the principal wit- 
ness ? 1198 No, certainly not. It may be that after the 
crisis of 68 (the date of the Apocalypse), and of the year 
70 (the ruin of Jerusalem), the old apostle, with an ardent 
and plastic soul, disabused of the belief of the near ap- 
pearance of the Son of Man in the clouds, inclined toward 
the ideas that he found around him, many of which amal- 
gamated quite well with certain Christian doctrines. In 
imputing these new ideas to Jesus, he would only follow a 
very natural leaning. Our recollections are, like everything 
else, transformable; the ideal of a person we have known 
changes as we change. Regarding Jesus as the incarna- 
tion of truth, John may well have attributed to him that 
which he himself had come to accept as the truth. 

It is nevertheless much more probable that John himself 
had no part in this ; that the change was made around him 
rather than by him, and doubtless after his death. The 

1196 Iren. Adv. Hcer. 1, 26: 1. 

1197 The expressions logos (Rev. 19: 13) and lamb of God, common to 
the fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse, may be indications of this. 

1198 Compare Col. 1: 13-17, with the epistles to the Thessalonians, 
the oldest we have of Paul. 

355 



LIFE OF JESUS 

long age of the apostle may have terminated in such a state 
of feebleness that he was in a measure at the mercy of 
those about him. 1199 A secretary might take advantage of 
this state to make one whom everybody called, par excel- 
lence, " the Elder " (6 7rpea-/3vT€pos), speak in his own style. 
Certain parts of the fourth Gospel were added later; such 
is the whole of chapter 21, 1200 in which the author seems 
to have resolved to render homage to the Apostle Peter 
after his death, and to answer the objections which might 
be drawn or were already drawn from the death of John 
himself (ver. 21-23). Several other passages bear traces 
of erasures and corrections. 1201 Not being accounted as 
wholly the work of John, the book might well remain fifty 
years in obscurity. Little by little people got accustomed 
to it, and finished by accepting it. Even before it had be- 
come canonical, many may have made use of it as a book 
of some slight authority, yet very edifying. 1202 On the 

1199 Some traditions (Euseb. Hr E. 3: 39) place beside him in his later 
years a namesake "John the Elder," who seems at times to have held 
the pen for him and acted as his substitute. In this view, the super- 
scription 6 irpeafivrepos of the second and third epistles of John, which 
seem to us of the same hand with the first epistle, gives room for argu- 
ment. Still, the existence of this "John the Elder" is not sufficiently 
established. It seems to have been imagined for the convenience of 
those who, through orthodox scruples, did not choose to ascribe the 
Apocalypse to the apostle (see p. 207, n. 675). The argument drawn 
by Eusebius for this hypothesis from a passage of Papias is not decisive. 
The words $ ri' Iwaw-qs in this passage may have been interpolated. In 
this case the words irpeafrxnepos* looavvns, from the pen of Papias, would 
indicate the Apostle John himself (Papias applies expressly the term 
irpeo-fivrepos to the apostles: cf. 1 Pet. 6), and Irenseus would be right, 
as against Eusebius, in calling Papias a disciple of John. What con- 
firms this conjecture is that Papias speaks of "John the Elder" as a 
direct disciple of Jesus. 

1200 Chap. 20: 30, 31, are evidently the original ending. 

1201 Chap. 4: 2 (cf. 3: 22); 7: 22; 12: 33, seem to be of the same hand 
with 21: 19. 

1202 Thus the Valentinians, who received it, and the author of the 
pseudo-Clementine Homilies, vary from it completely in reckoning the 

356 



INTRODUCTION 

other hand, the contradictions it offered to the Synoptic 
Gospels, which were much more widely circulated, pre- 
vented its being taken into account in constructing the life 
of Jesus, such as it was imagined to be. 

In this manner we may explain away the strange con- 
tradictions presented in the writings of Justin and in the 
pseudo-Clementine Homilies, in which are to be found 
traces of our Gospel, although certainly we do not place 
it upon the same footing as the Synoptics. Hence also 
those allusions, as they may be called, which are not direct 
quotations, made to it about the year 180; hence, finally, 
this singularity, that the fourth Gospel seems to emerge 
slowly from the church of Asia in the second century, first 
adopted by the Gnostics, 1203 but obtaining slight credence 
in the orthodox church (as we see from the controversy 
on the Passover), and then universally recognised. I am 
sometimes led to believe that Papias was thinking of the 
fourth Gospel when he set against the exact information 
in regard to the life of Jesus the long discourses and the 
singular precepts which others ascribe to him. 1204 Papias 
and the old Judseo- Christian party must have regarded such 
novelties as very reprehensible. This could not have been 
the only instance that a book at first deemed heretical 
forced the gates of the orthodox church, and became one of 
its rules of faith. * 

One thing, at least, I regard as very probable, — that the 

length of the ministry of Jesus. (Iren. Adv. Hcer. 1, 3: 3; 2, 22: 1 el seq. 
Horn. Clem. 17: 19.) 

1203 Valentinus, Ptolemy, Heracleon, Basileides, Apelles, the Naasenes 
[serpent-worshippers], the Peratse (Iren. Adv. Hcer. 1, 8: 5; 3, 11: 7. 
Origen in Joann. 6: 8 el seq. Epiph. Adv. Hcer. 33: 3; see especially 
Phrlosophumena, 6 and 8.). It may be that, in crediting citations from 
the fourth Gospel to Basileides and Valentinus, the Fathers did not 
ascribe to these founders of schools the opinions which prevailed after 
them in these schools. 

1204 InEuseb. H. E. 3:39. 

357 



LIFE OF JESUS 

book was written before the year 100; that is to say, at a 
time when the Synoptics had not yet a complete canonicity. 
After this date it is impossible any longer to conceive that 
the author could free himself so completely from the frame- 
work of the Apostolic Memoirs. To Justin, and ap- 
parently to Papias, the synoptic framework constitutes the 
true and only plan of the life of Jesus. One who under 
an assumed name wrote about the year 120-130 a fictitious 
Gospel would have contented himself with treating in his 
own way the received version, as the apocryphal Gospels 
do, and not have reversed from top to bottom what were 
regarded as the essential lines of the life of Jesus. This 
is so true, that, from the second half of the second cen- 
tury, these contradictions became a serious difficulty in the 
hands of the Alogi, and obliged the defenders of the fourth 
Gospel to invent the most confused solutions. 1205 Nothing 
proves that the author of the fourth Gospel had, when 
writing, any of the Synoptic Gospels before his eyes. 1206 
The striking similarities of his narrative to the other three 
Gospels as touching the Passion leads one to suppose that 
there was then for the Passion as well as for the Last 
Supper 1207 a fairly well established account, which people 
knew by heart. 

It is impossible at a distance to have the key to all these 
singular problems, and we should undoubtedly meet many 
surprises if it were given to us to penetrate the secrets 
of that mysterious school of Ephesus, which seems more 
than once to have taken pleasure in obscure paths. But 
here is a capital test. Every person who sets himself to 
write the Life of Jesus without a decided opinion upon the 

1205 Epiphan. Adv. Hcer. 1:1; Euseb. H. E. 3: 24. 

1206 The concords of Mark 2: 9 and John 5: 8, 9; Mark 6: 37, and John 
6: 7; Mark 14: 4 and John 12: 5; Luke 24: 1, 2, 12, and John 20: 1, 4-6, 
though singular, are sufficiently explained by memories. 

1207 1 Cor. 11: 23-26. 

358 



INTRODUCTION 

relative value of the Gospels, allowing himself to be guided 
solely by his feeling of the subject itself, would in many 
instances be induced to prefer the narrative of the fourth 
Gospel to that of the Synoptics. The last months of the 
life of Jesus especially are explained only by this Gospel; 
several details of the Passion, unintelligible in the Synop- 
tics, assume both possibility and probability in the narrative 
of the fourth Gospel. 120S On the other hand, I defy any- 
body to compose a rational Life of Jesus, who takes into 
account the discourses which the assumed John imputes to 
Jesus. This fashion of incessantly preaching himself and 
demonstrating his mission, this perpetual argumentation, 
this studied stage-effect, these long-reasonings that accom- 
pany each miracle, these stiff and awkward discourses, 
whose tone is so often false and unequal, 1209 could not be 
endured by a man of taste alongside the delightful utter- 
ances which, according to the Synoptics, constituted the 
soul of the teaching of Jesus. We have here evidently arti- 
ficial essays, 1210 which represent to us the discourses of 
Jesus in the same way as the Dialogues of Plato set 
forth the conversations of Socrates. They resemble the 
variations of a musician improvising on his own account 
upon a given theme. The theme itself may be in some 
degree authentic; but in the execution the artist gives his 
fancy free scope. We perceive the artificial progression, 
the rhetoric, the prearranged plan. 1211 Let us add that 
the diction of Jesus is nowhere to be found in the discourses 
of which we speak. The expression " Kingdom of God," 

1208 p or example, that concerning the announcement of the treachery 
of Judas. 

1209 See, e. g., 2: 25; 3: 32, 33, and the long discussions of chaps. 7, 8, 
and 9. 

1210 ^he wr it er often seems to seek occasion to insert discourses (chaps. 
3, 5, 8, 13, 16). 

i2ii Yor example, chap. 17. 

359 



LIFE OF JESUS 

so common with the Master/ 212 appears only once (3: 3, 5). 
On the other hand, the style of the discourses attributed to 
Jesus by the fourth Gospel offers the most complete anal- 
ogy to that of the narrative parts of the same Gospel, 
and to that of the author of the epistles called John's. We 
see that the author of the fourth Gospel, in writing these 
discourses, followed not his recollections, but the somewhat 
monotonous movement of his own thought. Quite a new 
mystical language is displayed in them, language charac- 
terised by the frequent employment of the words " world," 
"truth," "life," "light," "darkness,' resembling much less 
that of the Synoptics than that of the Book of Wisdom, 
Philo, and the Valentinians. If Jesus had ever spoken in 
that style, neither Hebrew nor Jewish, how does it come that, 
among his hearers, only a single one has so well kept the 
secret ? 

For the rest, literary history offers an example which 
presents a certain analogy to the historic phenomenon we 
have just described, and which serves to explain it. Soc- 
rates, who, like Jesus, did not write, is known to us through 
two of his disciples, Xenophon and Plato, — the former cor- 
responding with the Synoptics in his clear, transparent, 
and impersonal style of composition ; the latter, by his strong 
individuality, recalling the author of the fourth Gospel. 
In order to expound the Socratic teaching, must we follow 
the Dialogues of Plato or the Talks of Xenophon? In 
such a case doubt is not possible; every one sticks to the 
Talks and not to the Dialogues. Does Plato neverthe- 
less teach us nothing concerning Socrates? In writing 
the biography of Socrates, would it be good criticism to 
neglect the Dialogues? Who would dare to maintain this? 

Without pronouncing upon the main question, as to what 

1212 Besides the Synoptics, this is evident in the Acts, the Pauline 
epistles, and the Apocalypse. 

360 



INTRODUCTION 

hand indited the fourth Gospel, — even if we were per- 
suaded it was not that of the son of Zebedee, — we can 
admit, then, that this work possesses some title to be called 
the " Gospel according to John." The historic sketch of 
the fourth Gospel is, in my opinion, the life of Jesus as 
it was known to the immediate circle of John. It is also 
my belief that this school was better acquainted with numer- 
ous outward circumstances of the life of the founder than 
the group whose recollections go to make up the Synoptic 
Gospels. Notably, in regard to the sojourns of Jesus at 
Jerusalem, it was in possession of facts which the other 
churches had not. " John the Elder," who is probably not 
a different person from the Apostle John, regarded, it is 
said, the narrative of Mark as incomplete and confused; 
he even had a theory to explain the omissions of this narra- 
tive. 1213 Certain passages in Luke, which are a kind of an 
echo of the Johannine traditions, 1214 prove, moreover, that 
the traditions preserved by the fourth Gospel were 
not a thing entirely unknown to the rest of the Christian 
family. 

These explanations will suffice, I think, to show the mo- 
tives which in the course of my narrative have determined 
me to give the preference to this or that one of the four 
guides whom we follow in the life of Jesus. On the whole, 
I admit the four canonical Gospels as documents of good 

1213 Papias, loc. cit. (See above, p. 342.) 

1214 Such are the pardon of the sinful woman; the implied knowledge 
of the family at Bethany; the character of Martha, corresponding to 
8ir)K6<tei in John (12: 2) ; the idea given of the journeys of Jesus in Samaria, 
even (it would seem) of his several visits to Jerusalem; the curious like- 
ness between the Lazarus of Luke and that of John; the incident of 
the woman who wiped the feet of Jesus with her hair; the idea that Jesus 
appeared at his trial before three authorities; the opinion indicated by 
the author of the third Gospel that several disciples were present at 
his crucifixion; the notices as to the part played by Annas in connection 
with Caiaphas; the apparition of the angel at Gethsemane (cf. John 
12: 28, 29). 

361 



LIFE OF JESUS 

faith. All four belong to the century following the death of 
Jesus; but their historic value is very diverse. Matthew 
evidently merits especial confidence in respect of the dis- 
courses: here are the Logia, the very notes taken from a 
clear and lively memory of the teaching of Jesus. A sort 
of outburst at once mild and terrible, a divine force, if I 
may call it so, underlines these words, detaches them from 
the context, and to the critic renders them easily distin- 
guishable. The person who undertakes the task of weav- 
ing out of the Gospel story a consecutive narrative has 
here an excellent touchstone. The actual words of Jesus, 
so to speak, reveal themselves : as soon as we touch them, in 
this chaos of traditions of unequal authority, we feel them 
throb with life; they translate themselves as it were spon- 
taneously, and fit into the narrative of their own accord, 
standing out in high relief. 

The narrative parts grouped in the first Gospel about this 
primitive nucleus have not the same authority. In them are 
to be found many legends of quite undefined outline, which 
proceeded from the piety of the second Christian genera- 
tion. 1215 The accounts which Matthew has in common with 
Mark show faults of transcription which prove a slight 
acquaintance with Palestine. 1216 Many episodes are twice 
repeated, certain persons are duplicated, showing that dif- 
ferent sources have been utilized and unskilfully mixed. 1217 
The Gospel of Mark is much more firm, more precise, less 
weighted with circumstances added at a later date. Of 
the three Synoptics it is the one which has remained the 

1215 Especially chaps. 1, 2. See also 27: 3-10, 19, 51-53, 60; 28: 2-7, 
comparing Mark. 

1216 Comp. Matt. 15: 39 with Mark 8: 10. (See Comptes rendus de 
VAcad. des Inscr., etc., Aug. 17, 1866.) 

1217 Comp. Matt. 9: 27-31; 20: 29-34, with Mark 8: 22-26; 10: 46-52; 
Matt. 13: 28-34 with Mark 5: 1-20; Matt. 12: 38-42 with 16: 1-4; 9: 
34 with 12: 24-28. 

362 



INTRODUCTION 

most primitive, the most original/ 218 that to which were 
added the fewest later elements. Material details are given 
in Mark with a clearness which we should seek in vain in 
the other evangelists. He delights to report certain say- 
ings of Jesus in Syro-Chaldean. 1219 His observations are 
most minute, and come, no doubt, from an eye-witness. 
There is nothing to disprove that this eye-witness, who 
evidently had followed Jesus, who had loved him and ob- 
served him very closely, and who had preserved a lively 
image of him, was the Apostle Peter himself, as is main- 
tained by Papias. 

As for the work of Luke, its historic value is manifestly 
inferior. It is a document at second hand. Its manner 
of narration is more matured. The sayings of Jesus are 
there more reflective, more sententious. Some sentences 
are exaggerated and distorted. 1220 Writing outside Pales- 
tine, and certainly after the siege of Jerusalem, 1221 the 
author indicates the places with less exactness than the 
other two Synoptics; he is too fond of representing the 
Temple as a house of prayer, where people go to perform 
their devotions; 1222 he does not speak of the Herodians; 
he softens details in order to bring the different narratives 
into closer agreement ; 1223 he smooths over passages which 
had become embarrassing because of the more exalted idea 
which people around him had attained to in regard to the 
divinity of Jesus ; 1224 he exaggerates the marvellous ; 1225 

1218 For example, compare Mark 15: 23 with Matt. 27: 34. 

1219 Chaps. 5: 41; 7: 34; 14: 36; 15: 34. Matthew shows this quality 
only in 27: 46. 

1220 Chap. 27: 26. The rules of apostleship (10: 4, 7) have an espe- 
cially exaggerated tone. 

1221 Chaps. 19: 41, 43, 44; 21: 9, 20; 23: 29. 

1222 Chaps. 2: 37; 18: 10-13; 24: 53. 

1223 Chap. 4: 16; comp. note 3 on chap. 2 (below). 

1224 Chap. 3: 23; Mark 13: 32, and Matt. 24: 36 are omitted. 

1225 Chaps. 4: 14; 22: 43, 44. 

S63 



LIFE OF JESUS 

he commits errors of chronology 1226 and of typography ; 1227 
he omits the Hebraic glosses ; 1228 he appears to know little 
of Hebrew; 1229 he does not quote a word of Jesus in that 
language; he calls all the localities by their Greek names; 
he corrects at times in a clumsy manner the sayings of 
Jesus. 1230 We perceive in the author a compiler, a man 
who has not himself seen the witnesses, who labours at the 
texts, and permits himself great violences in order to make 
them agree. Luke had probably under his eyes the original 
narrative of Mark and the Logia of Matthew. But he treats 
them with great freedom: at times he runs two anecdotes 
or two parables together to make one ; 1231 sometimes he 
divides one so as to make two. 1232 He interprets the docu- 
ments according to his own mind; he has not the absolute 
impartiality of Matthew and Mark. We might add, con- 

1226 Regarding the taxing of Quirinius (Cyrenius), the revolt of Theu- 
das, and perhaps the mention of Lysanias, — though as to this last his 
accuracy may be defended. (See Mission de Phenicie, p. 347 et seq.; 
Corp. inscr. Gr. No. 4521 with the addenda. Josephus, Antiq. 18, 6: 10; 
19, 5: 1; 20, 7: 1; Bell Jud. 2, 11: 5; 12: 8.) 

1227 Comp. Luke 24: 13 with Josephus, Wars, 7, 6: 6 (ed. Dindorf); 
chap. 1: 39 is also suspected of error. 

1228 Comp. Luke 1: 34 with Matt. 1: 21; Luke 20: 46 with Matt. 23: 
7, 8. Luke avoids the words abba, rabbi, corbona, corban, raca, Boa- 
nerges. 

1229 Jerome In Isaiam, 6 (Opp. ed. Martianay, 3: 63, 64). The 
Hebraisms of his style, with certain Jewish traits (such as Acts 1: 12), 
came probably from persons he talked with, books he read, and docu- 
ments he followed. 

1230 p or example, epyoou (Matt. 11: 19) becomes in Luke (7: 35) tzkvwv, 
which reading, by a sort of reflex action, has found its way into most 
MSS. of Matthew. 

1231 p or example, 19: 12-27, where the parable of the talents is con- 
fused (ver. 12, 14, 15, 27) with one regarding rebel subjects. The 
parable of the rich man and Lazarus (chap. 16) contains features that 
have little to do with the main subject (the sores, the dogs, and ver. 
23-27). 

1232 Thus the feast at Bethany yields him two accounts (7: 36-48; 
10: 38-42). So with the discourses: thus Matt. 23 is found in Luke 11: 
39-41; 20:46, 47. 

364 



INTRODUCTION 

cerning his tastes and personal tendencies, that he is a very 
exact devotee ; 1233 he holds that Jesus has accomplished all 
the Jewish rites; 1234 he is a passionate democrat and Ebion- 
ite: that is to say, much opposed to property, and is per- 
suaded that the poor will soon have their revenge ; 1235 he 
is specially partial to the anecdotes which put into relief 
the conversion of sinners and the exaltation of the hum- 
ble ; 1236 he frequently modifies the ancient traditions so as 
to give them this turn. 1237 In his first pages he includes 
legends touching the infancy of Jesus, told with the long 
amplifications, the canticles, and the conventional proceed- 
ings, which constitute the essential feature of the apocry- 
phal Gospels. Finally, in the account of the last hours 
of Jesus, he introduces some circumstances full of a tender 
sentiment, as well as certain sayings of Jesus of rare 
beauty, 1238 not found in the more authentic narratives, in 
which can be detected the work of legend. Luke probably 
borrowed them from a later collection, in which the chief 
aim was to excite sentiments of piety. 

A great reserve was naturally required in regard to a 
document of this nature. It would have been as little scien- 
tific to neglect it as to employ it without discrimination. 
Luke had under his eyes originals which we no longer 

1233 Chaps. 23: 56; 24: 53. Acts 1: 12. 

1234 Chap. 2: 21, 22, 39, 41, 42 (this is an Ebionitish trait). See 
Philvsophumena, 7, 6: 34. 

1235 a s m f-kg p ara ble of Dives and Lazarus. See also 6: 20-23, 24-28 
(comparing the milder form in Matt. 5: 3-12); 12: 13-15; 16: (through- 
out); 22: 35. Acts 2: 44, 55; 5: 1-11. 

1236 'pjjg woman who anoints the feet of Jesus, the penitent thief on 
the cross, the pharisee and publican, the prodigal son. 

1237 Thus the woman who anoints the feet becomes, in his account, a 
penitent sinner. 

1238 Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, the bloody sweat, meeting with 
the holy women, the penitent thief, etc. The words spoken to the 
"daughters of Jerusalem" (17: 28, 29) can hardly have been thought 
of till after the siege of a.d. 70. 



LIFE OF JESUS 

have. He is less an evangelist than a biographer of Jesus, 
— a " harmonist/' a reviser, after the manner of Marcion 
and Tatian. But he is a biographer of the first century, 
a divine artist who, apart from the information he has ex- 
tracted from more ancient sources, shows us the character 
of the founder with a felicity of touch, an inspired grasp, and 
a sharpness of relief which the two other Synoptics do not 
possess. His Gospel is the one which possesses most charm 
in the reading ; for, not to mention the incomparable beauty 
of its subject-matter, he adds an element of art and skill 
which singularly enhances the effect of the portrait without 
seriously marring its truth. 

To sum up, we are warranted in saying that the synop- 
tic compilation has passed through three stages, — first, the 
original documentary stage (Xoyia of Matthew, Ae^eVra rj 
TrpayOlvTa of Mark), primary compilations no longer in 
existence; second, the stage of simple amalgamation, in 
which the original documents were thrown together without 
regard to literary form, and without betraying any personal 
traits on the part of the authors (the present Gospels of 
Matthew and Mark) ; third, the careful composition and 
studied compilation in which we are conscious of an effort 
made to reconcile the different versions (the Gospel of 
Luke, the Gospels of Marcion, Tatian, etc.). The Gospel 
of John, as we have said, is a composition of another order, 
and stands wholly by itself. 

It will be observed that I have made no use of the apocry- 
phal gospels. In no sense should these compositions be 
placed on the same footing as the canonical gospels. They 
are tiresome and puerile amplifications, having almost al- 
ways the canonical documents for a base, and never adding 
anything to them of any value. On the other hand, I 
have been most careful in collecting the shreds of ancient 
gospels preserved by the Fathers of the Church, which 
366 



INTRODUCTION 

formerly existed simultaneously with the canonical but are 
now lost, — such as that according to the Hebrews, that 
according to the Egyptians, those attributed to Justin, Mar- 
cion, and Tatian. 1239 The first two possess especial impor- 
tance, since they were composed in Aramean, like the Logia 
of Matthew, appearing to have formed a variation of the 
Gospel attributed to that apostle; and because they were 
adopted by the Ebionites, — that is to say, those small Chris- 
tian sects of Batanaea which preserved the use of the Syro- 
Chaldaic tongue, and appear to have continued, in a sense, 
the lineage of Jesus. But it must be owned that in the con- 
dition they have come down to us they are inferior, in 
critical authority, to the compilation of Matthew which we 
possess. 

It will now, I presume, be understood what sort of his- 
toric value I put upon the Gospels. They are neither biog- 
raphies after the manner of Suetonius, nor fictitious le- 
gends after the manner of Philostratus ; they are legendary 
biographies. I should class them frankly with the legends 
of the saints, the Lives of Plotinus, Proclus, Isidore, and 
other compositions of the same sort, in which historical 
truth and the desire to present models of virtue are com- 
bined in various degrees. Inexactness — a trait common to 
all popular compositions — is especially to be observed in 
them. Let us suppose that forty or fifty years ago three 
or four old soldiers of the empire had set themselves, each 
by himself, to write a Life of Napoleon from their own 
memory. It is clear that their narratives would present 
numerous errors, great discordances. One of them would 
place Wagram before Marengo ; another would boldly write 
that Napoleon ousted the government of Robespierre from 
the Tuileries ; a third would omit expeditions of the highest 

1239 For further details see Michel Nicolas, Etudes sur les Evangiles 
apocryphes (Paris, Levy, 1886). 

367 



LIFE OF JESUS 

importance. But one thing would certainly result from 
these simple narratives with a high degree of truth, — 
that is, the character of the hero, the impression he made 
around him. In this sense, such popular narratives would 
be worth more than a formal and official history. The same 
can also be said of the Gospels. Bent solely on bringing 
out strongly the excellency of the Master, his miracles, his 
teaching, the evangelists manifest entire indifference to 
everything that is not of the very spirit of Jesus. The 
contradictions in respect of time, place, and persons were 
regarded as insignificant; for the higher the degree of 
inspiration attributed to the word of Jesus, the less was 
ascribed to the compilers themselves. These regarded 
themselves only as simple scribes, and cared but for 
one thing, — to omit nothing of what they knew. 1240 

A certain share of preconceived ideas must without doubt 
have been mingled in these recollections. Several narra- 
tives, especially in Luke, are invented in order to bring out 
more vividly certain traits of the personality of Jesus. This 
personality itself underwent alteration every day. Jesus 
would be a phenomenon unique in history if, with the part 
which he played, he had not soon become transfigured. The 
legend respecting Alexander had its birth before the gener- 
ation of his companions in arms was extinct; that respect- 
ing Saint Francis of Assisi began in his lifetime. A rapid 
work of transformation went on in the same manner in 
the twenty or thirty years which followed the death of 
Jesus, and stamped upon his biography the absolute traits 
of an ideal legend. Death makes perfect the most perfect 
man; it renders him faultless to those who have loved him. 
At the same time with the wish to paint the Master, came 
likewise the desire to explain him. Many anecdotes were 
devised to prove that the prophecies regarded as messianic 
1240 See the passage from Papias, before cited. 
- 368 



INTRODUCTION 

had been fulfilled in him. But this procedure, whose im- 
portance is undeniable, would not suffice to explain every- 
thing. No Jewish work of the time gives a series of proph- 
ecies, precisely labelled, which the Messiah was destined 
to fulfil. Many of the messianic allusions prominent in 
the evangelists are so subtle, so indirect, that it is impossi- 
ble to believe they all had relation to a generally admitted 
doctrine. Sometimes they reasoned thus : " The Messiah 
was to do such a thing ; now, Jesus is the Messiah ; therefore 
Jesus has done such a thing." Sometimes they reasoned 
inversely: " Such a thing has happened to Jesus; now, Jesus 
is the Messiah; therefore such a thing was to happen to 
the Messiah." 1241 Too simple explanations are always 
false, when it is our task in hand to analyse the texture of 
those profound creations of popular sentiment which baffle 
all theories by their wealth and infinite variety. 

It is scarcely necessary to say that with such documents, 
in order to present only what is indisputable, we must keep 
to the main lines. In almost all ancient histories, even in 
those which are much less legendary than these, detail gives 
rise to infinite doubts. When we have two accounts of the 
same fact, it is extremely rare that the two exactly agree. 
Is not this a reason, when we have only one, for falling into 
many a perplexity? We may say that among the anec- 
dotes, the discourses, the celebrated sayings reported by the 
historians, there is not one strictly authentic. Were there 
stenographers to take down these fleeting words? Was 
there an annalist always present to note the gestures, the 
manner, the emotions of the actors? Let us try to attain 
to the truth as to the way in which such or such a con- 
temporary fact took place: we shall not succeed. Two ac- 
counts of the same event given by two eye-witnesses differ 
essentially. Must we, then, reject all the colouring of the 
1241 See, for example, John 19: 23, 24. 
369 



LIFE OF JESUS 

narratives, and confine ourselves to recording the bare facts 
only? That would be to suppress history. Of course, I 
am well aware that, if we except certain short axioms 
easily fixed in memory, not one of the discourses reported 
by Matthew is literally correct: there is hardly one of our 
stenographic reports which is so. I willingly admit that 
that marvellous account of the Passion embraces a multi- 
tude of trifling inaccuracies. Would it, however, be writing 
the history of Jesus to omit those discourses which exhibit 
to us in such a vivid manner the nature of his religious 
teaching, and to limit ourselves to saying, with Josephus 
and Tacitus, that " he was put to death by the order of 
Pilate at the instigation of the priests " ? That would be, 
in my opinion, a kind of inaccuracy worse than that to 
which one exposes himself when admitting the details sup- 
plied by the texts. These details are not true to the letter, 
but they are truth of a higher order; they are truer than 
the naked truth, in the sense that they are truth rendered 
expressive and articulate, and raised to the height of an 
idea. 

I beg those who think that I have placed an undue reli- 
ance on narratives which are in great part legendary, to 
take note of the observation I have just made. To what 
would the life of Alexander be reduced, if it were limited 
to that which is materially certain ? Even traditions partly 
erroneous contain a portion of truth which history may not 
pass over. No one has blamed M. Sprenger because, in 
writing the Life of Mahomet, he set much store by the 
hadith, or oral traditions concerning the prophet, and often 
imputed to his hero words which are only known through 
this source. The traditions respecting Mahomet, neverthe- 
less, have no historical value higher than the discourses 
and narratives which compose the Gospels. They were 
written between the year 50 and the year 140 of the Hegira. 
370 



INTRODUCTION 

When the history of the Jewish schools in the ages which 
immediately preceded and followed the birth of Christian- 
ity shall be written, no one will make any scruple of attrib- 
uting to Hillel, Shammai, or Gamaliel the maxims imputed 
to them by the Mishna and the Gemara, although these 
great compilations were formed many centuries after the 
time of the doctors just mentioned. 

Those, on the other hand, who believe that history ought 
to consist in merely reproducing without comment the docu- 
ments which have come down to us, are desired to take no- 
tice that such a course is not allowable. The four principal 
documents are in flagrant contradiction with one another; 
Josephus, moreover, sometimes corrects them all. We must 
make our choice. To assert that an event cannot take place 
in two ways at once, or in an absurd manner, is not to im- 
pose an a 'priori philosophy upon history. Because we have 
several different versions of the same fact, or because cre- 
dulity has mixed with all these versions fabulous circum- 
stances, the historian must not conclude that the fact is 
not a fact ; but he ought, in such a case, to be very cautious, 
— to examine the texts, and to proceed by induction. There 
is especially one class of narratives to which this principle 
must necessarily be applied, — narratives of the supernat- 
ural. To seek to explain these narratives, or to treat them 
as legends, is not to mutilate facts in the name of theory; 
it is to begin with the study of the very facts themselves. 
None of the miracles which abound in the old histories took 
place under scientific conditions. Observation, which has 
not once been falsified, teaches us that miracles never take 
place save in times and countries in which they are believed, 
and in presence of persons disposed to believe them. No 
miracle ever took place in presence of a gathering of men 
capable of testing the miraculous character of the event. 
Neither common people nor men of the world are equal to 
371 



LIFE OF JESUS 

this. It requires great precautions and long habit of scien- 
tific research. In our own days, have we not seen all sorts 
of people become dupes of the grossest frauds or of childish 
illusions? Marvellous facts, attested by the populations 
of small towns, have, thanks to closer investigation, been 
condemned. 1242 Since it is proved that no contemporary 
miracle will bear discussion, is it not probable that the 
miracles of the past, which were all performed in popular 
gatherings, would equally display their share of illusion if 
it were possible to criticise them in detail? 

It is not, then, in the name of this or that philosophy, 
but in the name of unbroken experience, that we banish 
miracle from history. We do not say, " Miracle is impossi- 
ble." We say, " So far, no miracle has ever been proved." 
If to-morrow a wonder-worker were to come forward with 
credentials sufficiently weighty to be discussed; if he were 
to announce that he was able, say, to raise the dead, — what 
would be done? A commission, composed of physiologists, 
physicists, chemists, persons trained in historical criticism, 
would be named. That commission would select the corpse, 
would assure itself that the death was indeed real, would 
designate the room in which the experiment should be made, 
would arrange a whole series of precautions, so as to leave 
no hold for doubt. If under such conditions the revival 
should take place, a probability almost equal to certainty 
would be established. As, however, it ought always to be 
possible to repeat an experiment, — to do over again that 
which has been done once, — and as, in the case of miracle, 
there can be no question of facility or difficulty, the wonder- 
worker would be invited to reproduce his marvellous feat 
under different circumstances, upon other bodies, in another 
place. If the miracle should succeed every time, two things 

1242 See the Gazette des Tribunaux, Sept. 10 and Nov. 11, 1851; 
May 28, 1857. 

372 



INTRODUCTION 

would be proved, — first, that it takes place in a realm of 
supernatural events; second, that the power of bringing 
them to pass belongs, or is delegated to, certain individuals. 
But who does not see that a miracle never took place under 
these conditions; that hitherto the miracle-worker has al- 
ways chosen the subject of the experiment, chosen the 
surroundings, chosen the public; that, moreover, it is the 
people themselves who most often, because of their invin- 
cible desire to see something divine in great events and 
great men, create afterwards the marvellous legends ? Un- 
til the order of things changes, we maintain it, then, as a 
principle of historical criticism, that a supernatural account 
cannot be admitted as such ; that it always implies credulity 
or imposture ; that it is the historian's duty to explain it, and 
search out what share of truth or of error it may conceal. 
Such are the rules which have been followed in the com- 
position of this work. In the reading of the texts, I have 
been able to combine with it an important source of informa- 
tion, — the view of the scenes where the events occurred. 
The scientific mission, having for its object the exploration 
of ancient Phoenicia, which I directed in I860 and 186l, 1243 
led me to reside on the frontiers of Galilee, and to travel 
thither frequently. I have traversed, in every sense of the 
term, the Gospel region; I have visited Jerusalem, Hebron, 
and Samaria; scarcely any important locality in the his- 
tory of Jesus has escaped me. All this history, which seems 
at a distance to float in the clouds of an unreal world, took 
thus a form, a solidity, which astonished me. The striking 
agreement of the texts and the places, the marvellous har- 
mony of the Gospel idea with the country which served it 
as a framework, were to me a revelation. Before my eyes 
I had a fifth Gospel, torn but still legible; and from that 

1243 rpijg wor k containing the results of this mission was published in 
1864. 

373 



LIFE OF JESUS 

time, through the narratives of Matthew and Mark, I saw, in- 
stead of an abstract being who might be said never to have 
existed, an admirable human figure living and moving. 
During the summer, having to go up to Ghazir, in the Leb- 
anon, to take a little repose, I fixed, in rapid sketches, the 
picture as it had appeared to me; and from these resulted 
this history. When a cruel affliction came to hasten my 
departure. I had onty a few pages to write. In this man- 
ner the book was composed near the very places where 
Jesus was born and lived. Since my return, 1244 I have la- 
boured unceasingly to complete and arrange in detail the 
rough sketch which I had hastily written in a Maronite 
cabin, with five or six volumes around me. 

Many will perhaps regret the biographical form which 
my work has thus taken. When, for the first time, I con- 
ceived the idea of writing a history of the origins of Chris- 
tianity, my intention was, in fact, to produce a history of 
doctrines, in which men would hardly have a place. Jesus 
was to be barely named; I was especially bent on showing 
how the ideas developed under cover of his name took root 
and covered the world. But I have since learned that his- 
tory is not a simple play of abstractions ; that in it men are 
more than doctrines. It was not a particular theory of 
justification and redemption that caused the Reformation: 
it was Luther and Calvin. Parseeism, Hellenism, Judaism, 
might have combined under all manner of forms; the doc- 
trines of the Resurrection and of the Word might have 
gone on developing for ages without producing that grand, 
unique, and fruitful fact which is called Christianity. That 
fact is the work of Jesus, of Paul, of the Apostles. To 
write the history of Jesus, of Paul, and of the Apostles 
is to write the history of the origins of Christianity. Earlier 

1244 My return was in October, 1861; the first edition of this book 
appeared in June, 1863. 

374 



INTRODUCTION 

movements do not belong to our subject except as serv- 
ing to explain these extraordinary men, who, naturally, 
could not have existed apart from that which preceded 
them. 

In such an effort, to make the great souls of the past 
live again, some degree of divination and of conjecture must 
be permitted. A great life is an organic whole, which can- 
not be exhibited by the mere heaping together of small 
facts. A profound sentiment must embrace the whole, and 
make its unity. The artist method in such a subject is a 
good guide; the exquisite tact of a Goethe would find a 
way to apply it. The essential condition of the creations 
of art is to form a living system, all whose parts are mutu- 
ally dependent and connected. In histories of this kind, 
the great indications that we- hold to the truth is to have suc- 
ceeded in combining the texts in such a fashion as to con- 
stitute a logical and probable narrative, in which nothing 
shall be out of tune. The secret laws of life, of the pro- 
gression of organic products, of the minute shadings of 
tone, ought to be consulted at each moment; for what is 
required to be reproduced is not the material circumstance, 
which it is impossible to verify: it is the soul itself of his- 
tory. What must be sought after is not the petty certainty 
of minutiae: it is the correctness of the general sentiment, 
the truth of colour. Each detail which departs from the 
rules of classic narration ought to warn us to be on our 
guard; for the fact which requires to be related has been 
conformed to the necessity of things, natural and harmoni- 
ous. If we do not succeed in rendering it such by our nar- 
rative, it is only because we have not attained to seeing it 
aright. Suppose that, in restoring the Minerva of Phidias 
according to the texts, we produced a composition at once 
dry, raw, artificial: what must we conclude? Only one 
thing, — the texts lack an appreciative interpretation; we 
375 



LIFE OF JESUS 

must woo them gently, until they can be made to join and 
furnish a whole in which all the parts are happily blended. 
Should we then be sure of having, feature by feature, the 
Greek statue? No; but we should not, at least, have the 
caricature of it: we should have the general spirit of the 
work, — one of the forms in which it might have existed. 

This sentiment of a living organism we have not hesi- 
tated to take as our guide in the general working out of 
the narrative. The reading of the Gospels would be suffi- 
cient to prove that the authors, although conceiving a very 
true idea of the life of Jesus, have not been guided by 
very rigorous chronological data. Papias, moreover, ex- 
pressly tells us this, and bases his opinion upon evidence 
which seems to emanate from the Ajjostle John himself. 1245 
The expressions, at this time, after that, then, and it came 
to pass, etc., are mere transitions designed to connect differ- 
ent narratives with one another. To leave all the informa- 
tion furnished by the Gospels in the disorder in which 
tradition gives it, would no more be writing the history of 
Jesus than it would be writing the history of a celebrated 
man to give pell-mell the letters and anecdotes of his youth, 
his old age, and his maturity. The Koran, which presents 
to us, in the loosest manner possible, fragments of the 
different epochs in the life of Mahomet, has discovered its 
secret to ingenious criticism; the chronological order in 
which the fragments were composed has been detected in 
such a way as to leave little room for doubt. Such a 
rearrangement is much more difficult in the Gospel, owing 
to the public life of Jesus having been shorter and less 
eventful than the life of the founder of Islam. Still, the 
attempt to find a thread which shall serve as a guide through 
this labyrinth ought not to be taxed with gratuitous sub- 
tlety. There is no great abuse of hypothesis in premising 
1245 Eusebius, Hist. Eccles. 3: 39 
376 



INTRODUCTION 

that a religious founder begins by keeping close to the 
moral aphorisms which are already in circulation,, and to the 
practices which are in vogue; that, as he advances and gets 
full possession of his idea, he delights in a kind of calm 
and poetic eloquence, apart from all controversy, sweet and 
free as pure feeling; that, as he gradually warms, he is 
kindled by opposition, and ends with polemics and strong 
invectives. Such are the periods plainly distinguishable 
in the Koran. The order which, with extremely fine tact, 
is adopted by the Synoptics, supposes a similar course. If 
we read Matthew attentively, we shall find in the arrange- 
ment of the discourses a gradation very like that just indi- 
cated. There will be noticed also a reserve in the turns of 
expression which are made use of when it is desired to show 
the progress of the ideas of Jesus. The reader may, if 
he prefers, see in the divisions adopted in this respect only 
the breaks indispensable for the methodical exposition of 
a profound and complicated thought. 

If love for a subject can serve to give an understanding 
of it, it will also, I hope, be recognized that in this I have 
not been wanting. To construct the history of a religion, 
it is necessary, first, to have believed it, — without this, we 
should not be able to understand why it has charmed and 
satisfied the human conscience; in the second place, to be- 
lieve it no longer in an absolute manner, since absolute 
faith is incompatible with honest history. B ut lo ve, persists 
a part from fai th. By not attaching one's self to any of 
the forms which captivate the adoration of men, one does 
not renounce the appreciation of that which they contain 
of good and of beautiful. No transitory apparition ex- 
hausts the Divinity : God had revealed himself before Jesus ; 
God will reveal himself after Jesus. Profoundly unequal, 
and so much the more divine as they are grander and more 
spontaneous, manifestations of the God who hides himself 
377 



LIFE OF JESUS 

in the depth of the human conscience are all of the same 
order. Jesus cannot, then, belong solely to those who call 
themselves his disciples. He is the common honour of all 
who carry a human heart. His glory does not consist in 
being banished from history; we render him a truer wor- 
ship in showing that all history is incomprehensible without 
him. 



378 



PREFACE 

TO THE THIRTEENTH EDITION 

The twelve earlier editions of this work differ from one 
another only in trifling changes. The present edition, on 
the contrary, has been revised and corrected with the great- 
est care. During the four years since the book appeared, 
I have laboured incessantly to improve it. The numerous 
criticisms to which it has given rise have rendered the task 
in some respects an easy one. I have read all important 
criticisms. I believe I can conscientiously affirm that not 
once have the outrage and the calumny which they breathe 
hindered me from deriving profit from the just observations 
which those criticisms might contain. I have weighed 
everything, tested everything. If people should wonder 
why I have not sometimes answered fully the censures 
which have been made with such extreme assurance, as if 
the errors alleged had been proved, I reply that it is not 
because I did not know of these censures, but because it 
was impossible for me to accept them. In such cases I 
have generally added in a note the texts or the considera- 
tions which have kept me from changing my opinion, or 
else by some slight change of expression I have endeavoured 
to show wherein lay the error of my critics. These notes, 
though very brief and doing little more than point out the 
original sources, are still enough to show the intelligent 
reader the reasonings that have guided me in the composi- 
tion of my text. 

To answer in detail all the charges that have been 
brought against me would require a volume three or four 
times the size of this. I should have been obliged to repeat 
379 



LIFE OF JESUS 

things which have already been well said, even in French. 
I must have entered into religious controversy, — a thing 
that I absolutely forbid myself. I should have had to speak 
of myself, a thing I never do. I write in order to put my 
ideas before those who seek the truth. As for those persons 
who in the interest of their belief must have it that I am 
an ignoramus, a liar, or a man of bad faith, I make no 
attempt to modify their opinion. If that opinion is neces- 
sary for the peace of mind of certain pious people, I should 
feel a genuine scruple at disabusing them. 

The controversy, moreover, if I had entered upon it, 
must have led me very often to points quite outside his- 
torical criticism. The objections made against me have 
come from two opposing parties. One set has been ad- 
dressed to me by free-thinkers, who do not believe in the 
supernatural, 1246 nor, consequently, in the insjDiration of the 
sacred books; or else by theologians of the liberal Prot- 
estant school, who have come to take such broad doctrinal 
views that the rationalist can readily arrive at an under- 
standing with them. These adversaries and I find ourselves 
on common ground ; we start with the same principles ; we 
can discuss according to the rules followed in all questions 
of history, philology, and archaeology. As to the refuta- 
tions of my book (and these are much the most numerous) 
which have been made by orthodox theologians, both Cath- 
olic and Protestant, who believe in the supernatural and in 
the sacred character of the books of the Old and New 
Testaments, they all involve a fundamental misapprehen- 
sion. If miracle has any reality, this book is but a tissue of 
errors. If the Gospels are inspired books, and true conse- 

1248 By this word I always mean the special supernatural act, miracle, 
or the divine intervention for a particular end; not the general super- 
natural force, the hidden Soul of the Universe, the ideal, source, and 
final cause of all movements in the system of things. 

380 



PREFACE 

quently to the letter, from beginning to end, I have been 
wholly in the wrong in not contenting myself with piecing 
together the broken fragments of the four texts, as the Har- 
monists do, sure of constructing thus a whole once most 
redundant and most contradictory. If, on the contrary, 
miracle is a thing inadmissible, then I am right in regard- 
ing the books which contain miraculous tales as history 
mixed with fiction, as legends full of inaccuracies, errors, 
and systematic shifts. If the Gospels are like other books, 
I am right in treating them in the same manner as the stu- 
dent of Greek, Arabian, or Hindoo lore treats the legendary 
documents which he studies. Criticism knows no infallible 
texts; its first principle is to admit the possibility of error 
in the text which it examines. Far from being accused of 
scepticism, I ought to be classed with the moderate critics, 
since, instead of rejecting in the lump documents damaged 
by so much alloy, I try to get something historical out of 
them by cautious modifications of the story. 

Let no one assert that to put the question in such a 
manner implies that we take for granted beforehand what 
is to be proved in detail, — namely, that the miracles related 
by the Gospels had no reality; that the Gospels are not 
books written by help of the Divinity. Those two nega- 
tions do not with us result from our method of criticism; 
they are anterior to it. They are the outcome of an expe- 
rience which has never been belied. Miracles are things 
which never happen. Only credulous people think they 
see them: you cannot cite a single one which has taken 
place in presence of witnesses competent to give a clear 
account of it. No special intervention of the Divinity, 
whether in the composition of a book, or in any event what- 
ever, has been proved. In the very fact that one admits the 
supernatural, he is so far outside the province of science; 
he accepts an explanation which is non-scientific, an expla- 
381 



LIFE OF JESUS 

nation which is set aside by the astronomer, the physicist, 
the chemist, the geologist, the physiologist, — one which the 
historian also must set aside. We reject the supernatural 
for the same reason that we reject the existence of centaurs 
and hippogriffs; and this reason is, that nobody has ever 
seen them. It is not because it has been proved to me 
beforehand that the evangelists do not merit absolute 
credence, that I reject the miracles which they relate. It 
is because they tell of miracles that I say, " The Gospels 
are legends; they may contain history, but certainly all 
that they set forth is not historical." 

It is hence impossible that the orthodox believer and the 
rationalist, who denies the supernatural, can help each 
other much in such discussions. In the eyes of theologians, 
the Gospels and the contents of the Bible in general are 
books like no others, — books more historic than the best 
of histories, inasmuch as they contain no error. To the 
rationalist, on the contrary, the Gospels are texts to which 
his very business is to apply the ordinary rules of criticism. 
We are in this respect like Arabic scholars in presence of 
the Koran and the hadithj like Hindoo students in pres- 
ence of the Vedas and the Buddhist books. Do our Arabic 
scholars regard the Koran as infallible? Do we accuse 
them of falsifying history when they relate the origins 
of Islamism differently from the Mussulman theologians? 
Do our orientalists hold the legendary life of Buddha to 
be an authentic biography? 

How can we come to an understanding when we set out 
from opposite principles? All rules of criticism assume 
that a document subjected to examination has but a relative 
value; that it may be in error, and corrected by some better 
document. A classical scholar, persuaded that all books 
bequeathed to us from the past are the work of men, does 
not hesitate to challenge the texts when they contradict 
382 



PREFACE 

one another; when they set forth absurd statements, or 
those formally disproved by documents of greater authority. 
The orthodox believer, on the contrary, sure in advance that 
his sacred books do not contain an error or a contradiction, 
is party to the most violent tactics, to expedients the most 
desperate, to get out of difficulties. Orthodox exegesis is, 
in this way, a tissue of subtilties. A single forced inter- 
pretation may be true; but a thousand such subtilties at 
once cannot be true. If there were in Tacitus or Polybius 
errors so pronounced as those committed by Luke regard- 
ing Quirinius and Theudas, we should say that Tacitus and 
Polybius were wrong. Reasonings which we would not 
allow if the question were one of Greek or Latin literature 
• — hypotheses which a Boissonade, or even a Rollin, would 
never think of — are held to be plausible when one sets him- 
self to defend a sacred writer. 

Hence it is the orthodox apologist that is guilty of bad 
logic when he reproaches the rationalist with falsifying 
history, because he does not accept word for word the docu- 
ments which orthodoxy holds to be sacred. Because a 
fact is written down, it does not follow that it is true. The 
miracles of Mahomet are down in writing, as well as those 
of Jesus; and certainly the Arabian biographies of Ma- 
homet — that of Ibn-Hashim, for example — have a much 
more historical character than the Gospels. Do we on this 
account admit the miracles of Mahomet? We follow Ibn- 
Hashim, with more or less confidence, when we have no 
reasons to diifer from him. But when he relates to us 
things perfectly incredible, we make no difficulty about 
abandoning him. Certainly, if we had four lives of 
Buddha, partly fabulous, and as irreconcilable with one 
another as the four Gospels, and if a scholar essayed to 
relieve the four Buddhist narratives of their contradictions, 
we should not accuse that scholar of charging the texts with 



LIFE OF JESUS 

falsehood. It might be well should he attempt to recon- 
cile discordant passages, or seek a compromise, a sort of 
neutral tale, a narrative to contain nothing impossible, in 
which opposing testimony should be balanced and treated 
with as little violence as possible. If, after that, the 
Buddhists believed in a lie, in the falsification of history, 
we should have a right to say to them: "The question here 
is not one of history; and if we must at times discard your 
texts, it is the fault of those texts which contain things im- 
possible of belief, and which, moreover, contradict one 
another." 

At the bottom of all discussion on such matters is the 
question of the supernatural. If miracle and inspiration 
of certain books are actual facts, our method is false and 
wrong. If miracle and the inspiration of such books are 
beliefs without reality, our method is the right one. Now, 
the question of the supernatural is settled for us with abso- 
lute certainty by this simple reason, that there is no room 
for belief in a thing of which the world can offer no experi- 
mental test. We do not believe in a miracle, just as we do 
not believe in ghosts, in the devil, in sorcery, or in astrol- 
ogy. Have we any need to refute step by step the long 
reasonings of astrology in order to deny that the stars 
influence human events? No. For this the purely nega- 
tive evidence is enough — quite as convincing as the best 
direct proof — that such an influence has never been estab- 
lished. 

God forbid that we should be unmindful of the services 
which theologians have rendered to science ! Investigation 
and verification of the texts which serve as authorities for 
this history have often been the work of orthodox theo- 
logians. The labour of criticism has been the task of 
liberal theologians. But there is one thing that a theologian 
can never be, — I mean, an historian. History is essentially 
384 



PREFACE 

disinterested. The historian has but one care, — art and 
truth. These two are inseparable: art guards the secret 
of the laws most closely related to truth. The theologian 
has an interest, — his dogma. Minimise that dogma as much 
as you will; it is still, to the artist and the critic, an insup- 
portable burden. The orthodox theologian may be com- 
pared to a caged bird: every movement natural to it is 
forbidden. The liberal theologian is a bird, some of whose 
wing-feathers have been clipped. You think him master of 
himself; and in fact he is so until the moment he seeks 
to take his flight. Then it is seen that he is not completely 
the child of the air. Let us say it boldly: critical studies 
relating to the origin of Christianity will not have said 
their last word until they are cultivated in a purely secular 
and unprofessional spirit, after the method of Greek, 
Arabic, or Sanscrit scholars, — men strangers to all theology, 
who think neither of edifying nor of scandalising nor of 
defending nor of refuting dogmas. 

Day and night, I presume to say, I have reflected on these 
questions, which ought to be discussed without any other 
prejudices than those that make the very essence of reason 
itself. The weightiest of all, unquestionably, is that of 
the historic value of the fourth Gospel. Those who have 
never changed their view on such problems give room for 
the belief that they have not comprehended the whole diffi- 
culty. We may range the opinions on this Gospel into 
four classes, of which the following is the abridged ex- 
pression : — 

First opinion: "The fourth Gospel was written by the 
Apostle John, the son of Zebedee. The statements con- 
tained in that Gospel are all true ; the discourses which the 
author puts into the mouth of Jesus were actually spoken 
by Jesus." This is the orthodox opinion. From the point 
of view of rational criticism, it is wholly untenable. 
385 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Second opinion: " The fourth Gospel is in substance by 
the Apostle John, although it may have been revised and 
retouched by his disciples. The facts related in this Gos- 
pel are direct traditions in regard to Jesus. The discourses 
are often free compositions, expressing only the manner 
in which the author conceived the mind of Jesus." This 
is the opinion of Ewald, and in some respects that of 
Liicke, Weisse, and Reuss. It is the opinion which I 
adopted in the first edition of this work. 

Third opinion: "The fourth Gospel is not the work of 
the Apostle John. It was attributed to him by some dis- 
ciple of his about the year 100. The discourses are almost 
entirely fictitious; but the narrative parts contain valuable 
traditions, ascending in part to the Apostle John." This 
is the opinion of Weizsacker and of Michael Nicolas. It 
is the opinion which I now hold. 

Fourth opinion: " The fourth Gospel is in no sense the 
work of the Apostle John. Neither the facts nor the dis- 
courses reported in it are historical. It is a work of the 
imagination, and in part allegorical, which came to birth 
about the year 150; and the author's purpose in it is not to 
recount the actual life of Jesus, but to propagate the idea 
which he has himself formed of Jesus." Such is, with 
some variations, the opinion of Baur, Schwegler, Strauss, 
Zeller, Volkmar, Hilgenfeld, Schenkel, Scholten, and 
Reville. 

I cannot quite fall in with this radical party. I am still 
convinced that the fourth Gospel has a real connection with 
the Apostle John, and that it was written about the end of 
the first century. I confess, however, that in certain pas- 
sages of my first edition I leaned too much in the direc- 
tion of authenticity. The convincing force of some argu- 
ments upon which I then insisted seems to me diminished. 
I no longer believe that Saint Justin put the fourth Gos- 
386 



PREFACE 

pel on the same footing with the Synoptics among the 
Memoirs of the Apostles. The existence of " John the 
Elder/' a personage distinct from the Apostle John, 
appears to me now very problematical. The theory that 
John, the son of Zebedee, wrote the work, — an hypothesis 
which I have never fully admitted, but for which, at moments, 
I felt a certain weakness, — is here discarded as improbable. 
Finally, I acknowledge that I was wrong in my hostility 
to the hypothesis of a spurious writing, ascribed to an 
apostle at the end of the apostolic age. The Second Epistle 
of Peter, the authenticity of which no one can reasonably 
maintain, is an example of a work, much less important no 
doubt than the fourth GosjDel, forged under such condi- 
tions. Moreover, this is not for the moment the capital 
question. The essential thing is to know what use it is 
fit to make of the fourth Gospel when one essays to 
write the Life of Jesus. I persist in believing that this 
Gospel has a substantial value equal to that of the Synop- 
tics, and even sometimes superior. The development of 
this point is of such importance that I have made it the 
topic of an appendix at the end of this volume. The por- 
tion of the introduction relating to the criticism of the 
fourth Gospel has been revised and completed. 

In the body of the narrative several passages have also 
been modified in consequence of what has just been said. 
All phrases more or less implying that the fourth Gospel 
was by the Apostle John, or by an eye-witness of' the evan- 
gelical facts, have been cut out. In order to trace the per- 
sonal character of John, the son of Zebedee, I have thought 
of the rude " Boanerges " of Mark, the terrifying seer 
of the Apocalypse, — no longer of the mystic, full of tender- 
ness, who has written the Gospel of Love. I insist, with less 
confidence, on certain little details furnished us by the 
fourth Gospel. The few citations I had made from the 



LIFE OF JESUS 

discourses of that Gospel have been still further reduced. 
I had allowed myself to follow too far in the steps of the 
alleged apostle in what concerned the promise of the " Com- 
forter " (TrapaKXrjTo's). In like manner, I am no longer 
so sure that the fourth Gospel is right in its disagreement 
with the Synoptics as to the day on which Jesus died. Re- 
garding the Lord's Supper, on the contrary, I persist in my 
opinion. The synoptic account, which places the euchar- 
istic institution on the last evening of Jesus' life, appears 
to me to involve an improbability almost equal to a miracle. 
That is, as I think, a view purely conventional, resting on a 
certain misty halo of recollections. 

The critical view as to the Synoptics has not been sub- 
stantially altered. It has been filled out and denned on 
some points, notably in that portion which concerns Luke. 
As regards Lysanias, a study of the inscription of Zeno- 
dorus at Baalbec, which I made for the Phoenician Mission, 
has led me to believe that the evangelist may have been less 
seriously in error than some ingenious critics think. As 
to Quirinius, on the contrary, the last memoir of Momm- 
sen has settled the question against the third Gospel. 
Mark seems to me more and more the primitive type of the 
synoptic narrative, and the most authentic text. 

The paragraph relating to the Apocryphal writings has 
been expanded. The important texts published by Ceriani 
have been put to service. I have had much hesitation about 
the Book of Enoch. I reject the opinion of Weisse, Volk- 
mar, and Gratz, who believe that the whole book is poste- 
rior to Jesus. As to the most important portion of the book, 
which extends from chapter 27 to chapter 71, 1 do not venture 
to decide between the arguments of Hilgenfeld and Colani, 
who regard this portion as later than the time of Jesus, 
and the opinion of Hoffmann, Dillmann, Kostlin, Ewald, 
Liicke, and Weizsacker, who hold it to be earlier. How 
388 



PREFACE 

much is it to be desired that the Greek text of that important 
writing could be found! I do not know why I persist in 
believing that this is not a vain hope. In any case, I have 
expressed my doubt of the inductions drawn from the chap- 
ters just named. I have shown, on the contrary, the marked 
correspondence of the discourses of Jesus contained in the 
last chapters of the Synoptic Gospels with the Apocalypses 
attributed to Enoch. The discovery of the complete Greek 
text of the epistle ascribed to Barnabas has cast much light 
on these relations, which Weizsacker has besides put in 
excellent relief. The positive results obtained by Volkmar 
in regard to the fourth Book of Esdras, which agree in 
almost every particular with those of Ewald, have been 
equally taken into consideration. Several new citations have 
been introduced from the Talmud. The space allotted to 
Essenism has been enlarged. 

The course I have taken in discarding bibliography has 
often been wrongly interpreted. I believe I have plainly 
enough declared what I owe to the masters of German 
learning in general, and to each of them in particular, to 
prevent my silence from being taxed with ingratitude. 
Bibliography is useful only when it is complete. Now, 
the German genius has displayed such activity in the field 
of evangelical criticism that if I had cited all the works 
bearing on the questions treated in this book, I should have 
tripled the bulk of the notes and changed the character of 
my work. One cannot do everything at once. I have there- 
fore kept to the rule of only admitting citations at first 
hand. Their number has been greatly multiplied. Besides, 
for the convenience of French readers who are not conver- 
sant with these studies, I have continued to give a summary 
list of writings composed in our language, where they may 
find details which I have unavoidably omitted. Many of 
these works are far remote from my ideas; but all are of a 
389 



LIFE OF JESUS 

nature to make an educated man reflect, and to give him a 
fair understanding of our discussions. 

The main text of the narrative has been little changed. 
Certain too strong expressions as to the communistic temper 
which was of the essence of Christianity at its birth have 
been softened down. Among those holding personal rela- 
tions with Jesus I have admitted some whose names do not 
figure in the Gospels, but who are known to us through 
trustworthy evidence. That which relates to the name of 
Peter has been modified. I have also adopted another hy- 
pothesis in regard to Levi, son of Alpheus, and his relations 
with the Apostle Matthew. As to Lazarus, I unhesitatingly 
adopt now the ingenious hypothesis of Strauss, Baur, 
Zeller, and Scholten, according to which the pious beggar 
of Luke's parable and the person restored to life by Jesus 
are one and the same. It will nevertheless be seen how I 
still make him a real person by identifying him with Simon 
the Leper. I adopt likewise the hypothesis of Strauss 
in respect of various discourses ascribed to Jesus during his 
last days, which appear to be quotations from writings cur- 
rent in the first century. The textual discussion as to the 
duration of the public life of Jesus has been brought to 
greater precision. The topography of Bethphage and Dal- 
manutha has been modified. The question as to Golgotha 
has been taken up anew, following the investigations of 
M. Vogue. A person well versed in the history of botany 
has taught me to distinguish, in the orchards of Galilee, 
between trees which grew there eighteen hundred years ago 
and those which were not transplanted there till later. Some 
facts have also been communicated to me in regard to the 
potion administered to the crucified; and to these I have 
given a place. In general, in the account of the last hours 
of Jesus, I have modified some phraseology which might 
have too much the look of history. It is here that Strauss's 
390 



PREFACE 

favourite explanations best meet the case, since here motives 
of symbol and dogma may be seen at every step. 

I have said, and I repeat, that if the writer of the Life 
of Jesus should confine himself to setting forth those mat- 
ters only which are certain, he must limit himself to a few 
lines. Jesus existed. He was from Nazareth in Galilee. 
There was charm in his preaching, and he left profound 
sayings deeply graven in the memory of his hearers. His 
two chief disciples were Cephas (Peter) and John the son 
of Zebedee. He excited the hatred of the orthodox Jews, 
who succeeded in having him put to death by Pontius Pilate, 
then procurator of Judaea. He was crucified outside the 
gate of the city. It was shortly after believed that he had 
been restored to life. This is what we should know for 
certain, even if the Gospels did not exist or were false, 
through authentic texts of incontestable date, such as the 
evidently genuine epistles of Saint Paul, the Epistle to 
the Hebrews, the Apocalypse, and other texts accepted by 
all. Beyond that, it is permissible to doubt. What was 
his family? What in particular was his affinity to that 
James, " the Lord's brother," who after his death plays an 
important part? Had he actual relations with John the 
Baptist, and did the most celebrated of his disciples belong 
to the school of the Baptist before they belonged to his? 
What were his ideas of the messiahship? Did he regard 
himself as the Messiah ? What were his apocalyptic ideas ? 
Did he believe that he would appear as the Son of Man in 
the clouds? Did he imagine that he wrought miracles? 
Were any attributed to him during his life ? Did his legend 
grow up round himself, and had he cognisance of it ? What 
was his moral character? What were his ideas regarding 
the admission of Gentiles into the Kingdom of God? Was 
he a pure Jew, like James, or did he break with Judaism, 
as the most active party in his Church did afterward? In 

391 



LIFE OF JESUS 

what order of growth was his thought subsequently wrought 
out? Those who seek only the indubitable in history must 
keep silent upon all that. In respect of these questions the 
Gospels are not much to be relied on, seeing that they often 
furnish arguments for two opposite opinions, the aspect of 
Jesus being modified in them according to the dogmatic 
view of the narrator. For my part I think that in such 
cases it is allowable to make conjectures, provided that they 
are presented as such. The texts, not being historic, give 
no certainty; but they give something. We should not 
follow them with blind confidence; we should not reject 
their testimony with unjust disdain. We must strive to 
divine what they conceal, without being ever quite certain 
of having found it. 

It is singular that on almost all these points the liberal 
school of theology offers the most sceptical solutions. The 
more sensible defenders of Christianity have come to con- 
sider it advantageous to leave a gap in the historical cir- 
cumstances bearing upon the birth of Christianity. Mira- 
cles and messianic prophecies, formerly the foundation of 
the Christian apology, have come to be its embarrassment: 
the aim now is to put them aside. If we listen to the parti- 
sans of this theology, among whom I could cite many 
eminent critics and noble thinkers, Jesus never pretended 
to perform a miracle; he did not believe himself to be the 
Messiah; he had no thought of the apocalyptic discourses 
which have been imputed to him touching the final catas- 
trophe. That Papias, so clinging to tradition, so zealous 
to gather up the words of Jesus, was an enthusiastic mil- 
lenarian; that Mark, the oldest and most authentic of the 
Gospel writers, is almost exclusively taken up with mira- 
cles, — matters little. The part assigned to Jesus is in this 
way so dwarfed that we should find it hard to tell what it 
was. His condemnation to death can on such an hypothesis 
392 



PREFACE 

no more be accounted for than the fortune which made him 
the chief of a messianic and an apocalyptic movement. Was 
it on account of his moral precepts or the 'Sermon on the 
Mount that Jesus was crucified? Certainly not. These 
maxims had for a long time been the current coin of the 
synagogues. No one has ever been put to death for repeat- 
ing them. If Jesus was put to death at all, it was for say- 
ing something more than that. A learned man, who has 
taken part in these discussions, wrote me lately : " As in 
former times it was necessary to prove at all hazards that 
Jesus was God, so the Protestant theologians of our day 
must needs prove, not only that he was a mere man, but 
also that he always regarded himself as such. People per- 
sist in representing him as a man of clear intelligence, as 
the especially practical man; they transform him into the 
image and according to the spirit of modern theology. I 
believe with you that this is not doing justice to historical 
truth, but is neglecting an essential side of it." 

This tendency has already been more than once logically 
developed in the bosom of Christianity. What did Marcion 
aim at? What did the Gnostics of the second century seek 
to do? Simply, to discard the material circumstances of 
a biography whose human details shocked them. Baur and 
Strauss yielded to the like philosophical necessities. The 
divine aeon self-developed in a human life has nothing to 
do with anecdotic incidents, with the particular life of an 
individual. Scholten and Schenkel hold certainly to an 
historic and actual Jesus ; but their historic Jesus is neither 
a messiah nor a prophet nor a Jew. One does not know 
what he aimed at, nor comprehended either his life or his 
death. Their Jesus is an aeon after his own manner, a being 
impalpable, intangible. Pure history is not acquainted with 
any such beings. Pure history must construct its edifice 
out of two kinds of materials, — so to speak, out of two fac- 
393 



LIFE OF JESUS 

tors: first, the general state of the human mind in a given 
age and country; second, the particular incidents which, 
combining with general causes, determined the course of 
events. To explain history by incidental facts is as false 
as to explain it by principles purely philosophic. The two 
explanations ought mutually to sustain and complete each 
other. The history of Jesus and of the apostles must, be- 
fore all, be a history constructed out of a vast mixture of 
ideas and sentiments. Nor would even that be sufficient. 
A thousand chances, a thousand whims, a thousand trifles, 
are mingled in the ideas and sentiments. To trace at this 
day the exact details of these chances, whims, and trifles 
is impossible; what legend tells us of them may be true, 
but it may also not be true. In my opinion, the best course 
to hold is to keep as close as we can to the original narra- 
tives, while we discard impossibilities, put an interrogation- 
mark at every point, and offer as conjectures the various 
ways in which the event may have taken place. I am not quite 
sure that the conversion of Paul came about as we have it 
related in the Acts ; but it took place in a manner not widely 
different from that, for Paul himself tells us that he had 
a vision of the risen Jesus, which gave an entirely new direc- 
tion to his life. I am not sure that the narrative of the 
Acts as to the descent of the Holy Spirit on the day of 
Pentecost is quite historic ; but the ideas which went abroad 
as to the baptism of fire lead me to believe that a scene took 
place in the apostolic circle in which thunder played a 
part, as at Sinai. The visions of the risen Jesus were in 
like manner occasioned by chance circumstances, interpreted 
by vivid and already preoccupied imaginations. 

If liberal theologians repudiate explanations of this kind, 

it is because they do not wish to bring Christianity under 

the laws common to other religious movements ; perhaps too 

because they do not sufficiently understand the theory of 

394 



PREFACE 

spiritual life. There is no religious movement in which 
such deceptions do not play a great part. It may even be 
said that they make the standing condition of certain com- 
munities^ such as the Protestant pietists, the Mormons, and 
Catholic convents. In these little excited worlds it is not 
rare that conversions are the result of some incident in which 
the stricken soul sees the finger of God. These incidents, 
which always have in them something childish, are kept hid 
by the believers; it is a secret between Heaven and them. 
Chance is nothing to a cold or indifferent soul; to a soul 
possessed, it is a sign from God. To say that it was an 
outward incident which changed Paul or Ignatius Loyola 
through and through, or rather which gave a new turn to 
their activity, is certainly inexact. It is the interior move- 
ment of these strong natures that prepares a way for the 
thunderclap, yet the thunderclap itself was determined by 
an exterior cause. All these phenomena, moreover, have 
to do with a moral condition which is no longer our own. 
In a multitude of their acts the ancients were governed by 
dreams they had had the night before, by inferences drawn 
from the object that happened first to strike their sight, or 
by sounds which they believed they heard. The flight of 
birds, currents of the air, slight nervous attacks, have de- 
termined the fate of the world. This we must say, that our 
judgment may be honest and impartial; and when docu- 
ments of some accuracy tell us stories of this kind, we must 
beware how we pass them over in silence. In history there 
are but few details which are certain; details, nevertheless, 
possess always some significance. The historian's talent con- 
sists in making a true picture out of features that are of 
themselves but half true. 

Thus we can yield a place in history to particular inci- 
dents, without being on that account a rationalist of the old 
school, a disciple of Paulus. Paulus was a theologian who, 
"05 



LIFE OF JESUS 

wishing to have as little miracle as possible, and not daring 
to treat the Bible narratives as legends, put them to the 
rack so as to explain them all in a purely natural way. 
Paulus claimed, along with this, to retain for the Bible all 
its authority, and to enter into the real thought of the 
sacred writers. 1247 But I am a profane critic. I believe that 
no supernatural story is true to the letter; I think that 
out of a hundred tales of the supernatural eighty are born 
full-grown from popular imagination. Still, I admit that 
in certain very rare cases legend comes from an actual fact 
transformed by the imagination. As to the mass of super- 
natural incidents recounted by the Gospels and by the Acts, 
I shall attempt to show in five or six how the illusion may 
have been created. The theologian, invariably methodical, 
insists that a single explanation should hold good from one 
end of the Bible to the other. The critic believes that every 
explanation should be attempted, or rather that the possi- 
bility of each should be shown in its turn. What an expla- 
nation may contain repugnant to our taste is no reason 
for rejecting it. The world is a stage-play at once infernal 
and divine, — a strange symphony conducted by a leader of 
genius, in which good and ill, the ugly and the beautiful, 
march in the ranks assigned them, so as to fulfil a myste- 
rious end. History is not history if in reading it one is 
not by turns charmed and disgusted, saddened and consoled. 
The first task of the historian is to sketch well the en- 
vironment in which the events he recounts took place. Now, 

1247 Here was the weakness of Paulus. If he had been content to say 
that many stories of miracle have a foundation of natural events mis- 
understood, he would have been right. But it was childish of him to 
insist that the sacred writer only meant to relate quite simple things, and 
that it was doing a good turn for the Bible text to rid it of its miracles. 
The lay critic can and should make such hypotheses, called "rationalist;" 
but the theologian has no such right, for their condition antecedent is 
to assume that the text is not revealed. 

396 



PREFACE 

the history of religious beginnings transports us into a world 
of women and children, of heads hot or dizzied. These 
facts, placed before minds of a positive order, are absurd 
and unintelligible: this is why countries such as England, 
ponderously rational, find it impossible to comprehend any- 
thing about them. The thing that lacks in the arguments, 
once so famous, of Sherlock or Gilbert West upon the res- 
urrection, of Lyttelton upon the conversion of Saint Paul, 
is not the reasoning process, — that is a triumph of solidity ; 
it is the just appreciation of the difference in environment. 
Every religious effort we are clearly acquainted with 
exhibits a prodigious mixture of the sublime and the ridic- 
ulous. Read those narratives of primitive Saint Simonism, 
written with admirable candour by the surviving adepts. 1248 
By the side of repulsive exhibitions, tasteless declama- 
tions, what charm, what sincerity, when the man or the 
woman of the people enters upon the scene, bearing the 
artless confession of a soul which opens to the first gentle 
ray that has struck it! There is more than one example 
of beautiful, durable things which have been founded upon 
strange puerilities. It were needless to seek for any pro- 
portion between the conflagration and the spark that lights 
it. The devotion of Salette is one of the great religious 
events of our age. 1249 These cathedrals, so noble, of Char- 
tres or Laon, were reared upon illusions of the same sort. 
The festival of Corpus Christi (Fete-Dieu) originated in 
the visions of a female religionist of Liege, who always 
believed that in her prayers she saw the full moon with a 
small cleft. We could instance movements, absolutely sin- 
cere, which have sprung up about impostors. The discovery 
of the holy lance at Antioch, in which the fraud was so 
patent, decided the fortune of the Crusades. Mormonism, 

1248 CEuvres de Saint-Simon et d'Enfantin. Paris, Dentu, 1865-66. 

1249 That of Lourdes seems to be taking equal proportions. 

397 



LIFE OF JESUS 

which in its origin was so discreditable, has inspired cour- 
age and devotion. The religion of the Druses rests upon a 
tissue of absurdities that stagger the imagination; but it 
has its devotees. Islamism, which is the second great event 
in the history of the world, would not now exist if the son of 
Amina had not been an epileptic. The gentle and immac- 
ulate Francis of Assisi would not have succeeded without 
Brother Elias. Humanity is so feeble of mind that the 
purest thing needs the co-operation of some impure agent. 
Let us guard against applying our scrupulous distinc- 
tions, our reasonings of cool and clear heads, to the appre- 
ciation of these extraordinary events, which are at once so 
much above and beneath us. One would make Jesus a sage, 
one a philosopher, one a patriot, one a good man, one a 
moralist, one a saint. He was not any one of these. He was 
a man who charmed. Let us not make the past in our own 
image. Let us not believe that Asia is Europe. With us, 
for example, the madman is a creature outside the common 
rule ; we torture him so as to make him re-enter it : the horri- 
ble methods of the old mad-houses were the result of scho- 
lastic and Cartesian logic. In the East, the lunatic is a 
privileged being ; he enters the highest councils without any 
one daring to stop him; he is listened to, he is consulted. 
He is a being believed to be nearer to God, inasmuch as, 
his individual reason being extinguished, he is believed to 
be a partaker in the divine reason. The wit which, through 
delicate raillery, rises above all defects of reason, has no 
existence in Asia. A person of high rank of Islam told 
me that, repairs having become necessary a few years ago 
at the tomb of Mahomet at Medina, an appeal was made 
to the masons, with the warning that he who should descend 
into that formidable place should have his head cut off 
on reascending. A man offered himself, went down, made 
the repairs, then submitted to be beheaded. " It could not 
398 



PREFACE 

be helped/' said my interlocutor to me; "we picture those 
places to ourselves in a certain manner, and there must not 
be any one who can say that they are otherwise." 

Troubled consciences cannot have the clearness of good 
sense. Now, it is only troubled consciences that lay founda- 
tions with power. I have tried to draw a picture in which 
the colours should be blended as they are in nature, which 
should be a likeness of humanity, — that is to say, at once 
grand and puerile, in which one should see the divine 
instinct threading its way with safety through a thousand 
peculiarities. If the picture had been without shadow, 
this would have been the proof that it was false. The con- 
dition of .the written proofs does not permit us to say in 
what cases the allusion was conscious of itself. All that we 
can say is, that sometimes it was so. One cannot lead for 
years the life of a wonder-worker without being often 
cornered, — without having one's hand forced by the public. 
The man about whom a legend arises in his lifetime is led 
tyrannically by this legend. One begins by artlessness, 
credulity, absolute innocence, — one ends in all sorts of em- 
barrassments ; and, in order to sustain the divine power 
which is at fault, he gets out of these embarrassments by 
the most desperate expedients. When one is pushed to 
the wall, must he leave the work of God to perish because 
God is slow to show himself? Did not Joan of Arc more 
than once make her Voices speak in response to the need of 
the moment? If the account of the secret revelation which 
she made to King Charles VII. has any reality, — which it 
is difficult to deny, — it must be that this innocent girl gave 
out as supernatural intuition what she had heard in confi- 
dence. An exposition of religious history which does not 
throw some cross-light upon suggestions of this sort, is by 
that very fact argued to be incomplete. 

Every true or probable or possible circumstance must 

399 



LIFE OF JESUS 

then have a place in my narration, together with its shade 
of probability. In such a history it was necessary to speak 
not only of what actually took place, but also of that which 
may probably have taken place. The impartiality with 
which I treated my subject forbade me to reject a supposi- 
tion, even though it was painful; for undoubtedly there was 
much that was shocking in the way things came to pass. 
From beginning to end I have applied the same process 
inflexibly. I have given voice to the good impressions which 
the texts have suggested to me; I must not, therefore, be 
silent as to the bad. I have wished that my book might 
keep its value even in the day when people should come to 
regard a certain amount of fraud as an element inseparable 
from religious history. It was necessary to make my hero 
noble and charming, — for undeniably he was so ; and that, 
too, in spite of actions which in our days would be judged 
unfavorably. I have been praised for attempting to con- 
struct a narrative living, human and possible. Would my 
work have deserved these praises if it had pictured the 
origins of Christianity as absolutely spotless ? That would 
have been to admit the greatest of miracles; and the result 
of this would have been a picture lifeless to the last degree. 
I do not say that in lack of faults I ought to have invented 
some. At all events, I must leave each text to produce its 
melodious or discordant note. If Goethe were now alive 
he would commend me for this scruple. That great man 
would not have forgiven me for producing a portrait wholly 
celestial: he would have desired to find repellent features; 
for, assuredly, in actual life things happen which would 
wound us if only it were given us to see them. Still, as 
such matters are brimful of edification, I have thought it 
my duty to select from the " Life of Jesus " a small volume 
in which nothing can affront the pious souls that have no 
care for criticism. I have entitled it " Jesus," to djstin- 
400 



PREFACE 

guisli it from the present work, which alone makes part of 
the series entitled " History of the Origins of Christian- 
ity." None of the changes made in the edition here offered 
to the public affects that little volume: I shall never make 
any alterations in it. 

The same difficulty presents itself, moreover, in the his- 
tory of the Apostles. This history is admirable in its way ; 
but what can be more shocking than the " speaking with 
tongues," which is attested by unexceptionable texts of Paul? 
Liberal theologians admit that the disappearance of the 
body of Jesus was one of the grounds for the belief in the 
resurrection. What does that signify, but that the Chris- 
tian conscience at that moment was two-sided; that one- 
half of that conscience gave birth to the illusion of the 
other half? If the same disciples had taken away the body, 
and then spread themselves over the city crying, "> He is 
risen ! " the imposture would have been called by the right 
name. But, no doubt, it was not the same persons who did 
the two things. For belief in a miracle to be accepted, it 
is indeed necessary that some one be responsible for the 
first rumour which is spread abroad; but, ordinarily, this is 
not the principal actor. His part is limited to making no 
protest against the reputation which has been given him. 
Even if he did protest, it would be useless ; popular opinion 
would prove stronger than he. Thus the founder of Bab- 
ism did not attempt to perform a single miracle; yet in his 
own lifetime he passed for a wonder-worker of the highest 
rank. In the miracle of La Salette, people had a clear 
idea of the artifice; but the conviction that it did good to 
religion carried all before it. Fraud shared among many 
grows unconscious of itself ; or, rather, it ceases to be fraud, 
and becomes misapprehension. Nobody in that case de- 
ceives deliberately; everybody deceives innocently. For- 
merly it was taken for granted that every legend implies 
401 



LIFE OF JESUS 

deceivers and deceived; in our opinion, all the parties to a 
legend are at once deceived and deceivers. A miracle, in 
other words, presupposes three conditions: first, general 
credulity ; second, a little complaisance on the part of some ; 
third, tacit acquiescence in the principal actor. Let us not, 
through reaction against the brutal explanations of the 
eighteenth century, fall into the trap of hypotheses which 
imply effects without cause. Legend does not spring up 
of itself; outside help brings it to the birth. The points it 
rests on are often extremely slight. It is the popular imag- 
ination that makes the snowball; there was, however, an 
original nucleus. The two persons who composed the two 
genealogies of Jesus, knew quite well that the lists were 
not of any great authenticity. The apocryphal books, the 
alleged apocalypses of Daniel, Enoch, and Esdras, proceed 
from persons of strong convictions; but the authors of 
these works knew well they were neither Daniel, Enoch, 
nor Esdras. The Asiatic priest who composed the romance 
of Thekla declared that he had done it out of love for 
Paul. We should say the same of the author of the 
fourth Gospel, surely a j)erson of first-rate importance. 
Drive the illusion of religious history out of one door, and 
it re-enters by another. In fine, one can hardly mention 
a great event of the past which took place in an entirely 
defensible manner. Shall we cease to be Frenchmen because 
France was founded bj^ centuries of perfidy? Shall we 
refuse to profit by the benefits of the Revolution because 
the Revolution committed crimes without number? If the 
house of Capet had succeeded in creating for us a good 
constitutional law-court, like that of England, should we 
wrangle over the cure of the " king's evil " ? 

Science alone is pure, for science has nothing to do with 
practice: it does not touch men; the Propaganda takes no 
heed of it. Its duty is to prove, not to persuade or to con- 
402 



PREFACE 

vert. He who has discovered a theorem publishes its dem- 
onstration for those who can understand it. He does not 
go up into a pulpit; he does not gesticulate; he has no 
recourse to oratorical artifices to get it adopted by those 
who do not perceive its truth. Enthusiasm, certainly,, has 
its good faith, but it is the good faith of a child; it is not 
the deep reflective good faith of the critical scholar. The 
ignorant yield only to bad reasonings. If Laplace had had 
to gain the multitude over to his system of the world, he 
could not have limited himself to mathematical demonstra- 
tions. M. Littre, in writing the Life of a man whom he 
regards as his master, could push candour so far as to leave 
nothing unsaid, however it might lower him in general es- 
teem. That is without example in religious history. 
Science alone seeks after pure truth. She alone offers good 
reasons for truth, and carries a severe criticism into the 
employment of her means of conviction. This is no doubt 
the reason why, till now, she has had no influence on the 
people. In the future, perhaps, when people are better 
instructed, as we are led to hope they may be, they will 
yield only to good formal proofs. But it would not be fair 
to judge the great men of the past on such grounds. There 
are natures that resign themselves to impotence, — that ac- 
cept humanity, with all its weaknesses, such as it is. Many 
great things could not have been accomplished without lies 
or without violence. If to-morrow the incarnate ideal were 
to come and offer itself to men to govern them, it would find 
itself confronted by folly, which wishes to be deceived; by 
self-will, which insists on being beaten down. The only 
one without reproach is the contemplative man, who aims 
simply to find the truth, without caring either to make it 
triumph or to apply it to facts. 

Ethics is not history. To paint and to relate is not to 
approve. The naturalist who describes the transformations 
403 



LIFE OF JESUS 

of a chrysalis neither blames nor praises it. He does not 
tax it with ingratitude because it abandons its shroud; he 
does not regard it as rash because it unfolds its wings; he 
does not accuse it of folly because it aspires to soar into 
space. One may be the passionate friend of the true and 
the beautiful, and yet show himself indulgent to the simple 
ignorance of the people. The ideal alone is spotless. Our 
happiness has cost our fathers torrents of tears and rivers 
of blood. In order that pious souls may taste at the foot 
of the altar the inward consolation which gives them life, 
it has needed centuries of tyrannical restraint, the myste- 
ries of sacerdotal polity, a rod of iron, fires of martyrdom. 
The respect due to every great institution demands no sac- 
rifice of historical good faith. Formerly, to be a good 
Frenchman, it was necessary to believe in Clovis's dove, in 
the national antiquities of the Treasure of Saint Denis, in 
the virtues of the oriflamme, in the supernatural mission of 
Joan of Arc ; it was necessary to believe that France was the 
first of nations, that French royalty was superior to all other 
royalties, that God had a predilection for that crown wholly 
unique, and was constantly engaged in protecting it. To- 
day we know that God protects equally all kingdoms, all 
empires, all republics ; we own that many kings of France 
have been contemptible men; we recognise that the French 
character has its faults; we frankly admire a multitude of 
things which come from abroad. Are we on that account 
worse Frenchmen? We can say, on the contrary, that we 
are better patriots; since, instead of being blind to our 
faults, we seek to correct them, and in place of maligning 
the foreigner, seek to imitate the good there is in him. In 
like manner we are Christians. He who speaks with irrev- 
erence of mediaeval royalty, of Louis XIV, of the Revolu- 
tion, of the Empire, commits an act of bad taste. He who 
does not speak gently of Christianity and of the church of 
404 



PREFACE 

which he forms a part makes himself guilty of ingratitude. 
But filial gratitude ought not to be carried to the length of 
closing our eyes to the truth. One is not wanting in respect 
to a government when he points out that it has not succeeded 
in satisfying the conflicting needs that are in man; or to 
a religion, in saying that it is not free from the formidable 
objections which science raises against all supernatural be- 
lief. Responding to certain social demands and not to 
certain others, governments fall by the very causes that have 
founded them and made their strength. Responding to 
the aspirations of the heart despite the protests of reason, 
religions crumble away in turn, because no force hitherto 
has succeeded in stifling reason. 

Disastrous to Reason the day when she should stifle re- 
ligion ! Our planet, believe me, is toiling at some mighty 
task. Do not pronounce rashly upon the inutility of such 
and such of its parts ; do not say that it is needful to sup- 
press this wheel-work, which seems only to thwart the play 
of the others. Nature, which has endowed the animal with 
an infallible instinct, has put into humanity nothing de- 
ceptive. From his organs you may fearlessly infer his 
destiny. Est Deus in nobis. Religions are false when they 
attempt to prove the infinite, to define it, to incarnate it (if 
I may so speak) ; but they are true when they affirm it. 
The greatest errors are nothing compared to the value of 
the truth which they proclaim. The simplest of the simple, 
provided he practise heart-worship, is more enlightened as 
to the reality of things than the materialist who thinks he 
explains everything by chance or by finite causes. 



405 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 

Ernest Renan was born in Treguier, Cotes du Nord, 28 
February 1823, the son of a fisherman and local trades- 
man. Already, within little more than half a century, the 
grey coast of Brittany had given to France two great re- 
ligious philosophers, Chateaubriand and Lamennais. Like 
them Renan inherited from his fisher ancestry the Breton 
temperament, mystic and unbending; he was, says his 
biographer, Madame Darmesteter, " as Breton as Merlin 
himself." But the gloom of the Celtic nature was tempered 
by the gaiety of his Gascon mother. " I am of a two-fold 
nature," he says of himself. " One part of me laughs while 
the other weeps. So one of them is always bound to be 
content." 

In the country of romance, which gave to the world 
Launcelot and Tristram, the childhood of Renan passed in 
poverty. When the boy was five his father died and the 
leadership of the family devolved on Henriette, Ernest's 
senior by twelve years, a frail girl who was neither comely 
nor brilliant but in whose soul burned the knightly spirit 
of her country's dreams. For the sake of her family she 
sacrificed her wish to enter a convent and since she pos- 
sessed a good education went to teach in Paris. Some 
years before she parted from her idolized younger brother 
she had placed him in the priests' school of St. Ives to 
study for the priesthood. The thought of marriage she put 
from her as she had the dream of religious life that she 
might the better help the gifted Ernest. 

At St. Ives young Renan learned Latin and mathematics ; 
the Treguier curriculum was not lengthy. The priests how- 
ever did much for him. " They taught me " says Renan, 
406 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 

" the love of truth, the respect for reason, the earnestness 
of life. . . . Old and dear masters, nearly all of you 
dead to-day, whose image often visits my dreams — not as 
a reproach, but as a mild and charming memory — I have 
not been as unfaithful to you as you think ! At heart I am 
still your disciple." Here at Treguier the boy stayed until 
1838. Then having by his achievements attracted the no- 
tice of the Abbe Dupanloup of St. Nicholas du Chardonnet 
he was sent for to continue his studies in Paris. 

In the brilliant Catholicism of the capital the boy found 
ideas unsuspected at peaceful Treguier. He read German 
thinkers; " I thought I entered a temple! " he writes. For 
seven years he read and thought and wrestled with con- 
flicting doubts and aspirations. The German philosophy 
he found " a continuation of Jesus Christ," yet to break 
with his loved Catholicism seemed impossible. "Even if 
Christianity be only a dream," he wrote, " the priesthood 
remains a divine type." To Henriette, now teaching in 
Poland, he poured out his thoughts. She too had lost her 
old belief. It was she who firmly held before him the 
highest ideals of truth and honor, who would not let him 
lower his standard and make compromises. " Above all," 
she wrote, " do not think of us, — of our family well-being. 
There is no true claim there, — I can suffice." He still be- 
lieved, he said; he prayed. " Yes, I am pious, fervidly 
pious, sometimes, in spite of all my doubts. I think I shall 
always remain pious in any case. . . . There are mo- 
ments when I think I will amputate my reason and live 
only for the mystic life." 

In the autumn of 1845 decision was made. The cloisters 
opened for Ernest Renan to pass out into a world of lay 
thinkers to fight for the truth as he saw it. The farewell 
was kindly. The good Abbe Dupanloup had reared an 
enemy to the cause he worked for, but he sent out his 
407 



LIFE OF JESUS 

protege with gentleness and agreed that anything was bet- 
ter than hypocrisy. " Are you in need of money? " was his 
kindly question at parting. " My poor purse is at your 
disposal. I wish I could give you something much more 
valuable." 

The choice made, the genius of his college, already a 
Semitic scholar of note, became practically usher at a boys' 
school. Renan had however much leisure and spent it in 
pursuing his studies in Semitic philology, not discouraged 
by his obscure position. " I have the instinct of suc- 
cess," he wrote to his sister. Two years later when only 
twenty-four years old he won the Volney prize of the In- 
stitute of France and shortly after became professor of 
philosophy at the Lycee of Vendome. The political up- 
heaval of 1848 stirred him deeply. He was a liberal but 
his ideas of democracy were offended by the bloody events 
of that year. Indeed his democracy was always of the 
head rather than of the heart. 

Shortly after this Henriette returned from Poland to 
live with her brother whom she had not seen for ten years. 
Renan had now a position at the National library and was 
devoting much time to the writing of brilliant essays. His 
sister was his secretary and critic; to her he owes much of 
the purity of his style. Aver roes, published in 1852, 
brought him much reputation. Three years later he pub- 
lished the General History of Semitic Languages, with 
which he had won the Volney prize. Essays followed one 
another rapidly and were collected into volumes. He wrote 
much for the liberal organ, Les Debats; he became known 
as " a great republican." 

Renan's marriage to Cornelie SchefFer, niece of Ary 

Scheffer the artist, did not disturb the intimacy between 

the brother and sister. The three lived together and the 

elder Madame Renan joined the household in Paris. Chil- 

408 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 

dren came and some years passed in the pleasant routine of 
daily duties when in I860 the emperor offered the philol- 
ogist an archaeological mission to Phoenicia. As a matter 
of course Henriette accompanied her brother and the two 
arrived in Syria in the autumn. 

In the next year the Life of Jesus took shape. Hen- 
riette copied and helped in every way. The pair became 
absorbed in their work and carried their devotion to a fatal 
extent. Disdaining the warnings of fever they labored 
on and in September fell dangerously ill. In a few days 
Henriette was dead. She was in her lonely grave before 
the brother, so loved and so devoted, knew of her death. 

Henriette had for years counselled her brother to accept 
no chair at the College of France but that of Hebrew, which 
was practically a chair of Biblical criticism. In 1862 the 
emperor gave this to Renan as the foremost French Semitic 
scholar. The first lecture was an event of moment. The 
orthodox flocked to hear bold heresies; the liberals came 
in an angry body to see if the favor of the emperor would 
tone down the beliefs of the prophet of the new thought. 
The restraining hand of Henriette was lifted from her 
brother. Dreamer that he was at heart, he never suspected 
the feelings of the audience that awaited him. With his 
mind full of his work at home he spoke of Jesus ; " an in- 
comparable man, deified in his death," was the phrase he 
used. The wildest confusion reigned. Renan to escape 
the ovation of the students left by a back way and the 
liberals, going to his home, shouted his name for hours. 
The new professor was promptly suspended. The result 
of the famous lecture was not only the loss of the chair 
but the discovery that he, the quiet man, the scholar, was 
more than ever identified with the politics of the liberal 
party. 

The great crises of Renan's life were now past. His 
409 



LIFE OF JESUS 

fate had been decided and he had but to follow the path 
he had chosen. He set to work on his projected history 
of the Origins of Christianity, as described in his preface 
to the Life of Jesus. This tremendous work occupied the 
greater part of the rest of his life. The Apostles ap- 
peared in 1866; St. Paul in 1869; Antichrist in 1873; The 
Gospels in 1877; The Christian Church in 1879 and Marcus 
Aurelius in 1882. For each volume he travelled and studied 
the ground. 

Not all Renan's life was devoted to his literary work. 
In 1869 he was a candidate of the liberal opposition for 
the chamber of deputies. He was defeated with difficulty. 
His position under the empire was improved so far that 
there was talk of re-instating him in the chair of Hebrew, 
but before this became more than talk war was declared 
with Germany. Renan was almost heartbroken. He 
thought the war criminal, " stark, staring madness." When 
the tragic sequel justified his prophecy he retired from 
active life and consoled himself with philosophy. He wrote 
philosophical dramas and essays and dreamed in disillusion- 
ment. 

In 1879 Renan was elected to the Academy not without 
opposition. He was now identified with most of the 
learned societies of France and his reputation was prodig- 
ious. He stopped his work on religious questions to write 
his Souvenirs, which appeared in 1883, and took the world 
by storm with their charm of matter and manner. Then 
returning to his great plan he set to work on his lengthy 
history of Israel. Only three of the five volumes appeared 
before his death, and his work was made difficult by ill- 
health. The summer of 1892 he spent on his loved Breton 
coast, but at the warning of approaching death he re- 
turned to Paris and died almost in harness 12 October 
1892. He was buried with the greatest honor in the ceme- 
410 



LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 

tery of Montmartre. It was impossible to give him the 
resting-place he most desired. It had been his wish to lie 
where he had walked in happy dreams and learned to love 
and seek the ideal; could his desire have been carried out 
he would have lain in the cloister at Treguier, on his tomb 
the words " I chose Truth." 



411 



THE STORY OF THE BOOK 

The real story of Renan's Life of Jesus would be the 
history of France from the days preceding the great revo- 
lution. More than that it would include the history of 
the author's own country of Brittany, for the book is 
saturated with the spirit of ^that land. Out of the revolt 
against old beliefs, out of the upheaval, social and men- 
tal, of the century 1750-1850, comes a book which com- 
bines the free thought of Paris with the poetry of the 
romantic northern coast. The Life of Jesus stands in a 
class alone among religious works. It has been called for 
its sweetness and charm a sort of fifth gospel, the gospel 
according to Thomas the Doubter. No other work of the 
kind has ever had an equal popularity; as a piece of litera- 
ture it has no rival among books of scholarship. The 
beauty of its style can be denied by no one whatever criti- 
cisms may be brought to bear on its matter. 

The book appeared 23 June 1863. Renan's position at 
this time is described in the preceding Life, as are also 
the peculiarly interesting circumstances attending its com- 
position. It was written for the most part in Syrian huts, 
under the influence of the scenes through which Jesus 
walked. From this it receives its spontaneous charm and 
at the same time lays itself open to criticism. When the 
volume was first published it was accused of many crimes 
against scholarship, and these were so far true that Renan 
altered it greatly before the thirteenth edition, the form in 
which the book is now circulated. At first he laid stress on 
the Gospel of John; in the thirteenth edition he changed 
this and agreed that little confidence could be placed in 
that document, excepting the last few chapters. In this 
412 



THE STORY OF THE BOOK 

way some of the criticism called forth by the original pub- 
lication loses its force. 

On the first appearance of the Life Saint Beuve, who 
was the friend and admirer of Renan, wrote an imaginary 
conversation between three readers of the book. The first 
is an orthodox Catholic who thinks the tradition of the 
church quite as logical as Renan's many " perhapses." 
Both tradition and radical criticism are conjectural. The 
sceptic says that Renan is still under the influence of the 
church. He has not dared to deal with Jesus quite as with 
a fellow-man. The book lacks courage. The thirds a man 
of the world, thinks that no man of intelligence and expe- 
rience accepts Christianity as preached, but that it is a 
good thing for the masses and should be preserved. The 
book has therefore no raison d'etre. The charge of over- 
fondness for conjecture was often repeated. Renan did 
not alter this characteristic of his work. His passion for 
truth forbade him to do so. Edmond Scherer thought the 
book far too aesthetic and could not believe that Jesus lent 
himself to fraud in connection with the miracles. Momm- 
sen, in his German way, called Renan a true savant " in 
spite of his beautiful style." Prosper Merimee sneered 
but remarked patronizingly, " Still it is interesting." 
George Sand found her ideal of Jesus lowered by it. 
" However," she observed, "as I am persuaded that Chris- 
tianity can only do harm, I think Monsieur Renan's book 
the most useful he could have written." The Empress 
Eugenie said that to believers it would do no harm, while 
to scoffers it would teach reverence. Not all Catholics held 
this opinion; Renan received periodically for some months 
letters in a woman's handwriting containing the single re- 
mark " There is a hell ! " The pope some years later re- 
ferred to him as " the blasphemer of Europe." 

Such was the storm raised by the publication of the 
413 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Life of Jesus. Littre's French translation of Strauss's 
Life of Jesus had appeared in 1840, but the more popular 
form of Renan's work gave him a far wider audience. He 
thought that Strauss with all his scholarship and care had 
failed in an essential — he did not show why Jesus was so 
loved by his followers. This certainty was a pitfall that 
Renan sought to avoid, and his insistence on the personal 
charm of Jesus has brought down on his book charges of 
effeminacy, " Frenchiness " and so forth. But the book 
quickly conquered its public. In five months the eleventh 
edition was exhausted and 66,000 copies were in circula- 
tion; there were two German translations, two Dutch, one 
Italian and one English. It is impossible to calculate how 
many translations and editions have been issued in all, but 
certainly no less than half a million copies have been 
printed. In 1864 a cheap popular edition entitled 
" Jesus " omitted the chapter on miracles and the pages 
dealing with the resurrection of Lazarus. Thus the chief 
stumbling-block was removed and Renan thought that the 
usefulness of his work was for many souls increased, but 
this was merely one special edition and the author in no 
way recanted his views, which remain in every other edition. 
In the thirteenth edition he added many footnotes giving 
authorities. Although these authorities are not all available 
for the average reader, they go to show how thorough was 
the work of research done by Renan. Inscriptions, coins, 
strange volumes from everywhere yielded him their tribute 
and testified to the sincerity of his search after light. 



414 



TABLE OF DATES 

The dates here given are taken from the best authori- 
ties of the school to which Renan belonged, and are gen- 
erally received as correct within a few years. Absolute 
exactness is impossible and in the matter of the dates of 
the books of Daniel, Ecclesiastes and Canticles orthodox 
scholarship of course differs widely. Many allusions not 
annotated in the body of the book will be explained by 
reference to this table, where they will be found in their 
proper connection with the political history of the Jews in 
the important centuries immediately preceding the time of 
Jesus, the appearance of volumes which influenced his 
thought, the change of the Jewish religion into a mass of 
observances, the dispersion of the race around the Mediter- 
ranean and the consequent paving of the way for Chris- 
tianity. The importance of a clear conception of the his- 
tory of the period is expressed by Renan in the phrase 
" There is no substitute for the ripeness of time " (History 
of Israel, 5:1). 

582 B.C. Third and last deportation of Judaeans to Baby- 
lon. During the period of captivity literature 
flourishes. The historical books are compiled 
and Ezekiel and the Babylonian Isaiah prophesy. 

538 B.C. Cyrus takes Babylon and permits the exiles to 
return. 

537 B.C. First return under Zerubbabel and Joshua ben 
Jehozedek. 

516 B.C. The second temple dedicated. 

459 B.C. Ezra leads a second body of returning Jews. 
Under him many religious reforms are carried 
out. 

415 



LIFE OF JESUS 

444 B.C. Nehemiah leads the third return. Under him 
Jerusalem is fortified. 

432 B.C. Malachi, the last of the prophets. 

420 B.C. Synagogues come into existence for religious dis- 
cussion. Zeal for the Law becomes so intense 
that the Jews add many minor observances to 
those of the older book, " erecting a hedge 
around the Law." 

338 B.C. Book of Chronicles written. 

332 B.C. Alexander the Great enters Jerusalem. He 
treats the Jews with consideration, sacrifices in 
the temple and promises them protection. 

320 B.C. Onias II high priest. Ptolemy I Soter captures 
Jerusalem on the Sabbath, the citizens refusing 
to defend themselves on the holy day. He takes 
prisoners to Alexandria, thus founding the colony 
of Alexandrian Jews which afterwards assumes 
great importance. 

301 B.C. Judaea becomes tribuary to Egypt after the 
battle of Ipsus. The office of high priest becomes 
political. 

300 B.C. Simon the Just, high priest. He is the "last of 
the men of the great synagogue." He begins the 
collection of oral traditions which subsequently 
took shape in the Talmud. 

217 B.C. Antigonus of Soco carries on the work of Simon 
the Just. 

209 B.C. The Song of Songs composed. 

203 B.C. Greek learning penetrates Judaea. The Hellen- 
ists begin to appear as a distinct party. Opposed 
to them are the Chasidim who dread the approach 
of polytheism. 

200 B.C. Jesus the son of Sirach writes Ecclesiasticus. 

188 B.C. Palestine under Syria. 
416 



TABLE OF DATES 

175 B.C. Antiochus Epiphanes, king. He makes a Hel- 
lenist high priest. Greek games in Jerusalem. 

168 B.C. Antiochus orders the Jews to become Hellenists. 
A statue of Jupiter is erected in the temple and 
pagan rites are celebrated. Hundreds of Jews, 
refusing to sacrifice to Greek gods, are tortured 
and put to death. Mattathias leads several thou- 
sands of the faithful into the desert. 

167-6 B.C. Under Judas Maccabaeus, son of Mattathias, 
about 6,000 of the Chasidim unite and win a 
series of victories over the Syrians at great odds. 
The Book of Daniel composed, the first of the 
messianic literature. 

165 B.C. The Syrians totally defeated, Judas enters Jeru- 
salem, purifies the temple and institutes Cha- 
nukah, the feast of lights. 

160 B.C. Judas wins further victories and seeks an alli- 
ance with Rome. He is killed in battle. His 
brothers continue the conflict. 

159 B.C. Judaea freed from Syria. Establishment of the 
Asmonean (Maccabaean) dynasty of high priests. 

150 B.C. The Pentateuch is translated into Greek for the 
Jews of Alexandria and Cyrene. 

140 B.C. Judaea and Rome allies. The Asmonean dynasty 
undisputed lords of Palestine. The Jewish Sibyl- 
line literature begins in Egypt. 

109 B.C. Great prosperity under John Hyrcanus, high 
priest. Rise of the sects of Pharisees, Sadducees 
and Essenes. Disputes between the Sadducees, 
the conservatives, and Pharisees, the innovaters, 
grow bitter. The zeal of the Chasidim begins to 
degenerate into pedantry. The Apocalypse of 
Enoch composed. 

105 B.C. Aristobulus I assumes the title of king. 
417 



LIFE OF JESUS 

79 B.C. Simon ben Shetach and Judah ben Tabbai, Phari- 
sees, reorganize the Sanhedrim. 

63 B.C. Pompey takes Jerusalem after a three months' 
siege. He enters the Holy of Holies but other- 
wise respects the Jewish faith. End of the 
Asmonean dynasty. Beginning of the Jewish 
colony at Rome. 

60 B.C. Shemaya and Abtalion, Jewish doctors, teach. 

40 B.C. Herod the Idumean, called the " demi-Jew," 
proclaimed king of Palestine by the Roman 
senate. The Book of Baruch, the Assumption 
of Moses and other messianic and apocalyptic 
works appear. 

37 B.C. Herod marries Mariamne, Asmonean princess. 

35 B.C. Herod, alarmed at the popularity of the young 
Aristobulus, brother of Mariamne and hereditary 
high priest, has him murdered. 

30 B.C. Hillel the liberal and Shammai the casuist found 
opposing schools. 

20 B.C. Dedication of Herod's temple. Many works of 
great splendor erected. 
4 B.C. Birth of Jesus. (One year earlier according to 
Graetz and Clinton ; two years later according to 
the Jewish Encyclopedia.) Death of Herod the 
Great. 

3 A.D. Revolt of Judas the Galilean or Gaulonite, 

founder of the party of Zealots. 
6 A.D. Judaea a Roman province. 

18 A.D. Judaism makes many converts in Greece and 
Rome. In Egypt Philo has elevated the Judaeo- 
Hellenic culture to its highest point. 
26 A.D. Pontius Pilate appointed procurator. 
418 



TABLE OF DATES 

33 A.D. Crucifixion of Jesus. (Three years earlier ac- 
cording to Graetz; four years earlier according 
to Clinton and the Jewish Encyclopedia.) 

41 A.D. Agrippa I, king of all Palestine. 

44 A.D. Theudas, calling himself the Messiah, is exe- 
cuted. 

48 A.D. Missions of Paul begin. 

49 A.D. The Zealots and Sicarii become very active at 

Jerusalem. 

65 A.D. Persecution of the Christians in Rome by Nero. 

66 A.D. Rebellion against Rome led by Eleazar, the 

Zealot. 

67 A.D. Reign of terror in Jerusalem under Zealots, who 

put to death anyone who speaks of making terms 
with Rome. 

68 A.D. Apocalypse of John, first book of the New 

Testament, composed (according to Renan). 

70 A.D. Titus besieges Jerusalem. The Romans take the 
city, after a desperate defense of five months. 
Few of the garrison are taken alive. The tem- 
ple is burned and the city is demolished. Over 
1,000,000 Jews perish. End of the Jewish state 
in Palestine. 

75 A.D. Josephus writes Wars of the Jews. 

93 A.D. Josephus writes Antiquities of the Jews. 

96 A.D. Persecution of the Christians. John exiled to 

Patmos. 

97 A.D. The fourth Book of Esdras composed. 

132-5 A.D. Insurrection against Romans — the most im- 
portant of several — in Palestine led by Bar- 
cochab. Rise of Gnosticism in the Christian 
church. Marcion becomes prominent a little 
later. The Ebionites (Judaizing Christians) be- 
come a distinct sect. 
419 



LIFE OF JESUS 

138 A.D. First apology of Justin Martyr. 

160 A.D. Birth of Tertullian. The controversy about 
Easter begins. 

185 A.D. Birth of Origen. Christianity spreads rapidly. 

200 A.D. Birth of Cyprian. 

202 A.D. Martyrdom of Irenaeus. 

226 A.D. Hippolytus writes against all heresies. Life of 
Apollonius of Tyana is written by Philostartus. 

256 A.D. Birth of Arius the heresiarch. 

270 A.D. Death of Plotinus, the neo-Platonist. 

275 A.D. Period of rest from persecution for Christians. 
They are received at court and hold office. 

303 A.D. The tenth general persecution. 

313 A.D. Constantine the Great establishes universal free- 
dom of religion. 

324 A.D. Christianity professed by the emperor, who rec- 

ommends it to his subjects. End of the Ecclesias- 
tical History of Eusebius. 

325 A.D. First oecumenical council at Nicaea. Arius is 

condemned as a heretic. The Nicene creed is 
framed, declaring the Son of " the same sub- 
stance " as the Father. The separation of Easter 
from any connection with the Jewish calendar 
settles this disputed point and removes the last 
trace of connection between Christianity and 
Judaism. 

375 A.D. The Jerusalem Talmud is completed. 

381 A.D. The second oecumenical council amends the Ni- 
cene creed and affirms the deity of the Holy 
Ghost. 

427 A.D. The Babylonian Talmud is completed. 



420 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

[Many historical references and proper names are explained in the 
Table of Dates.] 

8 The Beni-Israel. Volume 1 of the History of the 
People of Israel develops Renan's striking theory of the 
monotheistic nomadic tribes devoted to the worship of El. 
"Even at this remote period/' he says, "the Semite shep- 
herd bore upon his forehead the seal of the absolute God 
upon which was written: 'This race will rid the earth of 
superstition.' " In chapter 8 he writes: "Among the tribes 
thus devoted to the worship of El and connected with the 
mythical Abraham of Ur-Casdim there was one which dis- 
tinguished itself by a sort of religious gravity and scrupu- 
lous attachment to the supreme God. Its name was Israel, 
the meaning of whicli word was doubtful though it unques- 
tionably indicated the submission of this family to El." 

10 New texts such as Deuteronomy. Renan holds that 
after the separation of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah 
the law of each state took shape. The date is somewhere 
in the ninth century B.C. The tradition on which these 
laws were based is undoubtedly of much more ancient date. 
The two documents are known as the Elohist and the 
Jahveist, in reference to the difference in the word used 
to designate God. The Elohist document comprised the 
Decalogue and belonged to the kingdom of Judah. The 
Jahveist book of the kingdom of Israel included Exodus 
20 : 22 to 23 : 20. "The same gentle, kindly feeling, the same 
love of a peaceful life pervades both the histories." Vol- 
ume 2 of the History of Israel, chapters 10-15, develops 
421 



LIFE OF JESUS 

this theory. The later law Renan assigns to the year 622 
b. c, when the Book of the Law was reported to have been 
"found in the house of the Lord" (2 Kings 22-24). "The 
moving spirit in the whole of this deception" Renan con- 
siders Jeremiah. The text contained the section Deut. 
4:45 to the end of chapter 27. The custom of putting 
forth works stamped with the names of the great men of 
the past was a favorite one among the Jewish people. 
Renan says (vol. 3, book 5, chap. 15) : 

"The Torah discovered (that is to say fabricated) under 
Josiah was the basis of the special religion which was 
founded in the eighth and seventh centuries b. c. in Pales- 
tine. This Torah was the worst enemy of the universal 
religion of which the prophets of the eighth century 
dreamed. Jesus could cause the spirit of the prophets to 
triumph only by denying it outright. But human things 
are a compound of matter and mind. Liberty and the 
chain, that which excites and that which restrains, the 
sublime and the commonplace, are equally necessary in the 
construction of a general whole which is to endure. But 
for the precision of the Torah the ardent preaching of 
the prophets would have remained fruitless." 

11 This law was wholly social and moral. "The code 
conceived under Josiah which is known as Deuteronomy is 
the first of any extent in which an attempt was made to 
establish a system of guarantees for the weak at the ex- 
pense of the rich and the strong. . . . Never was love 
for the humble and the neglected carried so far. We 
find it making provision for the poor in all the acts of 
religion. . . . It is the programme of a sort of theocratic 
socialism." (History of Israel, vol. 3, book 5: 16.) 

14 A series of legends. Daniel and his companions, 
Daniel 1. The story of the mother and her seven sons in 
the second book of Maccabees relates that in the time of the 
422 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

persecutions of Antiochus Epiphanes seven sons were tor- 
tured to death one after the other before the eyes of the 
mother who "with a noble temper" besought them all to 
die rather than renounce their religion. The romance of 
the race-course is a far less beautiful story of the third 
book of Maccabees. Ptolemy IV, persecuting the Jews 
of Egypt, ordered them to be sent into the race-course 
where infuriated elephants were to trample them to death. 
The beasts were driven by the angels of God to turn on 
the soldiers of the king and the Jews were saved. 

14 The new messianic ideal. "The original messianic 
hope did not expect an individual Messiah at all, but 
theocratic kings of the house of David. Subsequently 
. . . however, the Messiah was thought of as a human 
king and ruler but as one endowed by God with special 
gifts and powers." (Schurer, vol. 2, 2:29.) 

15 Essenism. The Essenes though not mentioned in 
the Gospels had a strong influence on early Christianity. 
From a small beginning these ascetics grew into a mighty 
power. Renan calls Essenism "Judaism carried to its 
highest point" and "a foretaste of Christianity" (History 
of Israel^ book 9). It was "the superlative degree" of 
Pharisaism, so far as the nobler side of Pharisaism went, 
but had no sympathy with the degenerate form of that 
doctrine so prominent at Jerusalem. It laid little or no 
stress on the observance of minor matters of the Torah. 
Graetz says that the Essenes "believed that through an 
ascetic life they might re-awaken the long-silent echo of the 
heavenly voice and, this end gained, prophecy would be 
renewed." They were famed as workers of miracles. 

16 Literature designated Sibylline. The sibyl and her 
oracular utterances were of course the invention of the 
Greeks but this style of literature had many imitators both 
Jewish and Christian. When other methods of reaching 

423 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Greek and Roman culture with religious propaganda had 
failed, "it might be hoped/' says Schurer, "that entrance to 
extensive circles would be obtained under this form." 

29 Resemblances between him and Philo. Philo of Al- 
exandria, "the Jewish Plato/' is the author of many works 
of the loftiest spirit. Perfectly conversant with the litera- 
ture of Greece he remained loyal to the religion of his 
fathers, yet so universal was his philosophy that Jews and 
Greeks equally admired him and he so pleased the early 
Christians that he is referred to by them as one of the 
fathers of the church. "Philo gives us the first example 
of an attempt, since so often made, to reduce Judaism to 
a sort of natural religion or deism by diluting the element 
of revelation and exhibiting the minute directions of the 
Torah as simple precepts of natural reason or judicious 
laws of health" (History of Israel, 10: 13). A suggestion 
has been made to the effect that although Jesus did not 
know the Greek language or literature there must have 
been in Galilee some remnants of Greek thought. The 
attempt to Hellenize Judaea was not so remote that traces 
might not have lingered in the open-air discussions of the 
thoughtful Jews, although they would naturally have been 
ignorant of the origin of their ideas. 

62 The thoughts of . . . Hillel. Hillel's name came 
to be a synonym for gentleness and toleration among the 
Jews. It is related of him that a pagan once mockingly 
said he would adopt Judaism if Hillel would teach him 
the whole Law while he stood on one foot. The sage smil- 
ingly replied that this was an easy matter: "Do not unto 
others that which you would not have them do unto you. 
This is the whole Law, the rest is but a commentary on 
this." 

64 Jesus did not speak against the Mosaic law. The 
Jewish Encyclopedia in a careful study of the life of 
424 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

Jesus thus sums up what Jewish scholars consider to have 
been his attitude toward the Law: 

"Almost at the beginning of his evangelical career Jesus 
differentiated himself from John the Baptist in two direc- 
tions: (1) comparative neglect of the Mosaic or rabbinic 
law; and (2) personal attitude toward infractions of it. 
In many ways his attitude was specifically Jewish, even in 
directions which are usually regarded as signs of Judaic 
narrowness. Jesus appears to have preached regularly in 
the synagogue, which would not have been possible if his 
doctrines had been recognized as being essentially different 
from the current Pharisaic beliefs. In his preaching he 
adopted the popular method of mashed, or parable, of 
which about thirty-one examples are instanced in the 
synoptic Gospels, forming indeed the larger portion of his 
recorded teachings. It is obvious that such a method is 
liable to misunderstanding; and it is difficult in all cases 
to reconcile the various views that seem to underlie the 
parables. One of these parables deserves special mention 
here, as it has obviously been changed, for dogmatic rea- 
sons, so as to have an anti- Jewish application. There is 
little doubt that Joseph Halevy is right (Revue des Etudes 
Juives 4:249-255) in suggesting that in the parable of 
the good Samaritan (Luke 10: 17—37) the original contrast 
was between the priest, the Levite, and the ordinary Israel- 
ite — representing the three great classes into which Jews 
then were divided. The point of the parable is against the 
sacerdotal class, whose members indeed brought about the 
death of Jesus. Later, 'Israelite' or 'Jew' was changed 
into 'Samaritan/ which introduces an element of incon- 
sistency, since no Samaritan would have been found on the 
road between Jericho and Jerusalem. 

"While the aim of Jesus was to redeem those who had 
strayed from the beaten path of morality, he yet restricted 
425 



LIFE OF JESUS 

his attention and that of his followers to the lost sons of 
Israel. He particularly forbade his disciples to seek 
heathens and Samaritans (Matt. 10:5), and for the same 
reason at first refused to heal the Syrophenician woman. 
His choice of twelve aj)ostles had distinct reference to the 
tribes of Israel. He regarded dogs and swine as unholy 
(Matt. 7:6). His special prayer is merely a shortened 
form of the third, fifth, sixth, ninth and fifteenth of the 
Eighteen Benedictions. Jesus wore the zizit (Matt. 9: 20) ; 
he went out of his way to pay the Temple tax of two 
drachmas (ib. 17:24—27); and his disciples offered sacri- 
fice (ib. 5:23-24). In the Sermon on the Mount he ex- 
pressly declared that he had come not to destroy the Law, 
but to fulfil it (ib. 5:17, quoted in Shab. Il6b), and that 
not a jot or tittle of the Law should ever pass away (ib. 
5:18; comp. Luke 16:17). It would even appear that 
later tradition regarded him as scrupulous in keeping the 
whole Law (comp. John 8: 46). 

"Yet in several particulars Jesus declined to follow the 
directions of the Law, at least as it was interpreted by the 
rabbis. . . . His attitude toward the Law is perhaps best 
expressed in an incident which though recorded in only one 
manuscript of the Gospel of Luke (6:4 in the Codex 
Bezae) bears internal signs of genuineness. He is there 
reported to have met a man laboring on the Sabbath day, — 
a sin deserving of death by stoning according to the Mosaic 
law. Jesus said to the man: 'Man, if thou knowest what 
thou doest, blessed art thou; but if thou knowest not, 
cursed art thou and a transgressor of the Law.' Accord- 
ing to this the Law should be obeyed unless a higher prin- 
ciple intervenes. . . . 

"It is however exaggerated to regard these variations 
from current practices as exceptionally abnormal at the 
beginning of the first century. The existence of a whole 
426 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

class of Am ha-Arez [those called 'sinners' by the Phari- 
sees] shows that the rigor of the Law had not yet spread 
throughout the people." 

66 Phrases already current. Graetz surmises that this 
prayer was in use among the Essenes. 

85 His ideas on the kingdom. The Jewish encylo- 
pedia, in its article on Jesus, says: 

"In essentials Jesus' teaching was that of John the Bap- 
tist and it laid emphasis on two points : ( 1 ) repentance 
and (2) the near approach of the kingdom of God. One 
other point is noted by Christian theologians as part of his 
essential teaching, namely, insistence on the fatherhood of 
God. This is such a commonplace in the Jewish liturgy 
and in Jewish thought that it is scarcely necessary 
to point out its essentially Jewish character (see Father). 
As regards repentance its specially Jewish note has 
been recently emphasized by C. G. Montefiore (Jewish 
Quarterly Review, Jan. 1904), who points out that Chris- 
tianity lays less stress upon this side of religious life than 
Judaism; so that in this direction Jesus is certainly more 
Jewish than Christian. As regards the notion of 'the 
kingdom of heaven' the title itself (malkut shamayim) is 
specifically Jewish; and the content of the concept is 
equally so (see Kingdom of God). Jesus seems to have 
shared in the belief of his contemporaries that some world- 
catastrophe was at hand in which this kingdom would be 
reinstated on the ruins of a fallen world." 

113 A 'problematical person named Aristion. "If by 
chance anyone came who had followed the elders I ex- 
amined the words of the elders ; what said Andrew or Peter 
or Philip or Thomas or James or what John or Matthew 
or any other of the Lord's disciples, as for instance what 
Aristion and the elder John, our Lord's disciples, say." 
(Papias in Eusebius 3:39). 

427 



LIFE OF JESUS 

113 An influential group. In the appendix to The 
Gospels (volume 5 of the origins of Christianity) Renan 
deals with the history of the family of Jesus. There is 
reason to believe, he says, that Judas the brother of Jesus 
succeeded his brother James as head of the church at 
Jerusalem. He was at any rate connected with the de- 
velopment of early Christianity. Simon and Joseph re- 
mained obscure. Simeon, son of Cleophas, was called the 
second bishop of Jerusalem and was succeeded by his 
nephew Judah. Eusebius (Ecclesiastical History 2:20) 
relates that grandsons of Judas were brought before 
Domitian who had heard them credited with descent from 
ancient Hebrew kings and the expectation of a new king- 
dom. They explained that the kingdom they expected was 
a heavenly one and were released by the emperor. 

126 Relations with the Essenes. Graetz, in common 
with various other critics, makes the closest connection 
between Christianity and Essenism; he calls the new faith 
"an offshoot of Essenism." John the Baptist he considers 
entirely an Essene and Jesus he makes one also although 
in a less full fellowship with that ascetic brotherhood; the 
early Jewish Christians were "practically Essenes." Renan 
considers the direct connection doubtful but the resem- 
blance he admits is deep; "the spirit in both was the 
same." 

133 Ebionites. Eusebius declares that these Judaizing 
Christians were called Ebionites "because of the poverty 
of their understanding." "The unfortunate Ebionites," 
says Gibbon (History of Rome 2: 15), "rejected from one 
religion as apostates and from the other as heretics, found 
themselves obliged to assume a more decided character; 
and although some traces of that obsolete sect may be 
discovered as late as the fourth century, they insensibly 
melted away into either the church or the synagogue." 
428 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

157 Mariamne, daughter of a certain Simon. This 
woman is not to be confounded with the high-minded 
Asmonean princess who had been put to death at the com- 
mand of her suspicious husband. 

167 Affiliation with Judaism. "Considering the wall 
of rigid separation which, as regards matters of religion, 
the Jews had erected between themselves and the Gentiles 
it would not readily occur to one that these latter were 
also permitted to take part in the worship at Jerusalem. 
And yet that such was the case is a fact as well authenti- 
cated as any fact could be. Nor are we thinking of the 
large body of proselytes. . . . No, we have in view such 
as we were Gentiles, who in sacrificing at Jerusalem 
would by no means care to acknowledge that in so doing 
they were professing their belief in the superstitio 
Judaica." (Schiirer, 1, 2:24, appendix.) 

170 The day on which he uttered this saying. It is 
on phrases of this sort that the critics fell when the Life 
of Jesus first appeared. The conversation being without 
hearers other than the two concerned is open to doubt by 
any critic as Renan admits in his own note. In his mono- 
graph on The Value of the Fourth Gospel he says further: 
"The details of the dialogue are evidently fictitious. On 
the other hand the topography of verses 3—6 is satisfac- 
tory. . . . There is no rigorous authenticity in such 
sentences. Can we admit that Jesus or the Samaritan 
woman related the conversation they had together ? . . . 
Here then is an anecdote which we can no more accept 
literally than any other anecdote of history. But an 
anecdote often has its own truth. If Jesus never uttered 
that divine word the word is none the less his; it never 
would have existed without him." 

186 Miracles. Strauss in his Life of Jesus carefully 
examines the miracles one by one and dismisses them as 
429 



LIFE OF JESUS 

myths. Renan's inability to reach this solution of the 
difficulty and his theory that Jesus allowed himself to be 
considered a miracle-worker naturally aroused a storm of 
protests. This chapter was so violently attacked by differ- 
ent parties that it was omitted in a special edition, — see 
The Story of the Book. Graetz, whose Jewish birth as 
well as his scholarship and candor make him an interesting 
critic of these events, seems to be much of Renan's opinion. 
After a tribute to the lofty character of Jesus he adds : 

"Though these stories may in part be due to an inclina- 
tion to exaggerate and idealize they must doubtless have 
had some foundation in fact. Miraculous cures — such for 
example as the exorcism of those possessed by demons — 
belonged so completely to the personality of Jesus that his 
followers boasted more of the exercise of that power than 
of the purity and holiness of their conduct. If we are to 
credit the historical accounts of that period, the people also 
admired Jesus more for the command he displayed over 
demons and Satan than for his moral greatness." 

221 The sacred feast. Josephus and Philo give long ac- 
counts of the Essenes and the latter in his treatise on The 
Contemplative Life analyzes at length the customs of the 
Therapeutae of Egypt, a band of ascetics apparently more 
monastic in their habits than the Essenes. Renan is not 
prepared to accept all Philo's statements as strictly his- 
torical but assumes some basis for them (History of Israel, 
book 10:15). The Essenes entered their common dining- 
room, says Josephus, "after a pure manner as into a holy 
temple," clothed in white and freshly bathed. He adds: 
"Before [a new brother] is allowed to touch their common 
food he is obliged to take tremendous oaths" (Wars 2: 8). 
The Therapeutae according to Philo were accustomed to eat 
together bread and salt and to drink water; hyssop was 
allowed those who needed something more stimulating. 
430 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

260 A council was called by the chief priests. Renan 
was criticized for following on this point the fourth Gos- 
pel, a production written at a comparatively late date by 
a strongly anti- Jewish element of the Christian church. 
This narrative is consistent with the point of view of the 
writer who makes the word "Jew" synonymous with 
"enemy of Jesus" and does not coincide with the apparent 
ignorance of the personality of Jesus which led the dwell- 
ers at Jerusalem to ask who he was when he entered the 
city for the last time and which required also a guide to 
arrest him. Renan defends his position in his monograph 
on the fourth Gospel and considers this narrative "much 
more probable" than that of the Synoptics. 

272 Motives impossible to explain. Various opinions 
were held in the early church as to the motives which led 
Judas to betray his master. One sect, the Cainites, held 
him in reverence according to Tertullian and Irenaeus. 
The Cainites believed that out of zeal for the truth 
Judas "looking to the salvation of mankind delivered up 
Christ" (De Praescriptionibus, 47). Irenaeus explains the 
doctrines of this heretical sect in much the same way 
(Against Heresies, 5). 

281 The Talmud adds: In the Jewish writings of 
the centuries immediately following the time of Jesus he 
is referred to under various names, as Ben Stada and 
Ben Pandeira. He is said to have "brought magic from 
Egypt" and a number of passages relate that "they brought 
Ben Stada to the Beth Din [the tribunal] and stoned 
him." One long and interesting paragraph, from which 
the name has been almost erased by some zealot will serve 
as an example. It reads (B Sanhedrim 43) : 

"And it is tradition on the eve of Pesah they hung Jeshu 
[the Nazarene]. And the crier went forth before him 40 
days saying Jeshu [the Nazarene] goeth forth to be stoned 
431 



LIFE OF JESUS 

because he hath practised magic and deceived and led 
astray Israel. Anyone who knoweth aught in his favor 
let him come and declare concerning him. And they found 
naught in his favor. And they hung him on the eve of 
Pesah. Ulla says: 'Would it be supposed that [Jeshu the 
Nazarene] a revolutionary had aught in his favor.' He 
was a deceiver and the Merciful hath said (Deut. 13:8) 
'Thou shalt not spare, neither shalt thou conceal him.' But 
it was different with [Jeshu the Nazarene] for he was of 
the kingdom." 

283 The Sanhedrim was assembled. The Jewish En- 
cyclopedia holds that the 23 priestly members of the San- 
hedrim who "had been offended in both pride and pocket" 
by Jesus' action in cleansing the Temple "met informally 
after he had been seized and elicited sufficient to justify 
them in their own opinion in delivering him over to the 
Romans, as likely to cause trouble by his claims or pre- 
tensions to the messiahship, which of course would be re- 
garded by them as rebellion against Rome. Nothing cor- 
responding to a Jewish trial took place although it was 
by the action of the priests that Jesus was sent before 
Pontius Pilate." 

287 The acts of Pilate. Philo in the Legatio ad Caium 
38 refers to Pilate as a man "very merciless as well as very 
obstinate by nature; he would do nothing to please the 
Jews." Josephus gives an account of his troubles with 
the Jews (Antiquities 18: 3: 1, 2) : 

"So Pilate introduced Caesar's effigies which were upon 
the ensigns and brought them into the city; whereas our 
Law forbids the very making of images; on which account 
the former procurators were wont to make their entry 
into the city with such ensigns as had not those orna- 
ments. . . . And when the Jews petitioned him again 
[on the sixth day] he gave a signal to the soldiers to en- 
432 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

compass them around and threatened that their punishment 
should be no less than immediate death unless they would 
leave off disturbing him and go their ways home. But 
they threw themselves upon the ground and laid their necks 
bare and said they would take their death very willingly 
rather than the wisdom of their laws should be trans- 
gressed; upon which Pilate was deeply affected with their 
firm resolution to keep their laws inviolable and presently 
commanded the images to be carried back from Jerusalem to 
Cesarea. 

"But Pilate undertook to bring a current of water to 
Jerusalem and did it with the sacred money and derived 
the origin of the stream from the distance of two hundred 
furlongs. However the Jews were not pleased with what 
had been done about this water and many ten thousands 
of the people got together and made a clamour against 
him. So he habited a great number of his soldiers in their 
habit who carried daggers in their garments and sent them 
to a place where they might surround them. . . . He 
gave the soldiers the signal which had been beforehand 
agreed upon: who laid much greater blows upon them than 
Pilate had commanded them and equally punished those 
that were tumultuous and those that were not, nor did they 
spare them in the least. . . . There were a great number 
of them slain by this means." 

The act which caused the removal of Pilate was con- 
cerned with the Samaritans. A great crowd gathered 
together at Mount Gerizzim led by a man who claimed that 
he would show them the sacred vessels of Moses, or the 
bones of Moses according to other accounts. "Soldiers of 
Pilate fell upon those that were gotten together in the 
village; and when they came to an action some of them 
they slew and others of them they put to flight and took 
a great many alive, the principal of whom and also the most 
433 



LIFE OF JESUS 

potent of those that fled away Pilate ordered to be slain" 
(Antiquities 18: 4: 1). 

288 Pilate then would have liked to save Jesus. Criti- 
cisms of Renan's treatment of the trial of Jesus brought 
out a quantity of controversial writing. In the Allege- 
meine Zeitung des Judenthums for 1865 — to take but one 
example — the editor, the learned Dr. Ludwig Philippson, 
deals with the question from the liberal Jewish point of 
view. He argues that the character of Pilate as shown in 
the Gospels is quite inconsistent with what history tells of 
him, that the narrative shows ignorance of Jewish customs 
which would suggest a Gentile and anti-Jewish editor, that 
claims of messiahship were promptly punished by the 
Romans for fear of their effect on a people as fiercely 
resentful of conquest as were the Jews of that period, 
while there is no recorded instance of persecution of a 
self-styled Messiah by the Jews themselves. He admits 
that accusations were very likely brought against Jesus by 
Jews and possibly even by one of his own disciples, but 
denies absolutely that there was ever an actual trial by 
the Sanhedrim or a clamorous demand for the execution of 
Jesus. Strauss who has no brief for the Jewish people 
remarks of the trial of Jesus: "In all this there is nothing 
historically improbable, though we cannot overlook the fact 
that the resistance of Pilate is worked out with especial 
industry by the evangelist in order to bring out in strong 
relief the innocence of Jesus on the one hand and the 
obstinate wickedness of the Jews on the other." He later 
points out that the washing of hands in token of innocence 
was a Jewish custom not likely to have been adopted by a 
Roman of Pilate's temper. " That Pilate should have been 
deeply interested in attesting his innocence of the execu- 
tion is not so probable as that the Christians should have 
been deeply interested in thus gaining a testimony to the 
434 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

innocence of their Messiah: whence there arises a suspicion 
that perhaps Pilate's act of washing his hands owes its 
origin to them alone" (Life of Jesus, Part 3:3). Monsieur 
Havet of the College de France in a most appreciative 
review of Renan's work has some criticisms to make on 
this subject (Revue des Deux Mondes, 1863). 

291 Thus attired he was led to the tribunal. Scourging 
a condemned criminal was forbidden by the Law of Moses. 
Graetz points out that the excessive cruelties and indignities 
to which Jesus was subjected, all of them Roman in char- 
acter and contrary to Jewish custom, were confused in the 
minds of the early Christians with the enmity of the priests 
to Jesus and "instead of turning their wrath on cruel Rome 
they made the Judaean people responsible for inhuman 
deeds." 

317 Josephus mentions his execution. The passage in 
Josephus which refers to Jesus is generally admitted to be 
in whole or in part the work of a Christian. The disputed 
point is whether the entire passage or only a portion of it 
is interpolated. The weight of authority is perhaps with 
the former opinion, although many scholars, Renan in- 
cluded, hold that the paragraph is in part from the pen 
of Josephus (Antiquities 18:3:3). The passage runs: 

"Now there was about this time Jesus a wise man, if it be 
lawful to call him man for he was a doer of wonderful 
works, — a teacher of such men as receive the truth with 
pleasure. He drew over to him many of the Jews and many 
of the Gentiles. He was the Christ; and when Pilate at the 
suggestion of the principal men amongst us had condemned 
him to the cross those that loved him at the first did not for- 
sake him for he appeared to them alive again the third day, 
as the divine prophets had foretold these and ten thousand 
other wonderful things concerning him; and the tribe of 
Christians, so named from him, are not extinct at this day." 
435 



LIFE OF JESUS 

318 The essential work of Jesus. The historian's 
final word on this subject will be found in the last chapter 
of the History of Israel, written so short a time before his 
death. 

"A fundamental opinion, in which I grow more and 
more confirmed is not only that Jesus lived but that he 
was great and noble. His greatness and his nobility may 
have been as much hidden as you choose to imagine and 
in as small a circle as you will, but they were real, — a thou- 
sand times more real than the pale grandeurs and faint 
beauties of earth. . . . To be loved as he was loved he 
must have been supremely lovable. The resurrection above 
all is a convincing proof of this. On vague hints, the 
third day after his death the women among his disciples, 
especially Mary of Magdala, imagined that Jesus had come 
to life and gone into Galilee. This was a mighty miracle 
wrought by love. Love, stronger than death, restored life 
to the beloved. A shadow, a pale myth, could not have 
worked that miracle. . . . The world now worships him 
whom these people loved so passionately. 

"We therefore consider that there is much historic truth 
in the Gospels. But even were there little the great fact 
remains. That fact is the foundation of Christianity. 
The details may be hidden; the progress of the idea is 
clear. Messianism in travail since the days of Daniel, 
reached its perfection in Jesus. For all who believe in the 
Messiah he is the Messiah. For those who wish the Son 
of Man he is the Son of Man. For those who seek the 
Logos, the Son of God, the Spirit, he is the Logos, the Son 
of God, the Spirit. He is the kingdom of God, the resur- 
rection, the life, the judgment. . . . 

"Judaism and Christianity will both disappear. The 
work of the Jew will have its end ; the work of the Greek — 
in other words, science and civilization, rational, ex- 
436 



NOTES ON THE TEXT 

perimental, without charlatanism, without revelation, a 
civilization founded on reason and liberty — will endure 
forever ; and if this earth should ever be untrue to its duty 
there will be others who will arise to push to the end the 
programme of all life, — light, reason and truth. The 
trace of Israel, however, will be eternal. Israel first gave 
form to the cry of the people, to the plaint of the poor, to 
the obstinate demand of those who hunger and thirst after 
righteousness." 



437 



LIST OF AUTHORITIES 

The Jewish People in the Time of Christ. Emil Schiirer. 

History of the Jews. H. Graetz. 

History of the People of Israel. Ernest Renan. 

History of Israel. Heinrich Ewald. 

Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah. Rev. Alfred 
Edersheim. 

Jewish Artisan Life in the Time of Our Lord. Dr. Franz 
Delitzsch. 

Jesus and Hillel. Dr. Franz Delitzsch. 

The Deicides. Joseph Cohen. 

Babylonian Talmud, translated by Michael Rodkinson. 

Jerusalem Talmud, translated into French by Moses Schwab. 

Christianity in Talmud and Midrash. R. Travers Herford. 

The Apocrypha. [The Oxford University Press published 
a fair-sized collection, and a number of translations 
in separate volumes have appeared.] 

Josephus' Antiquities and Wars of the Jews. 

The Ecclesiastical History of Eusebius. 

Apostolic Records of Early Christianity. Rev. John Allen 
Giles. 

Les Origines du Christianisme. 8 vols. [Paris: Michael 
Levy Freres. Some volumes are translated and pub- 
lished by Little, Brown and Co., Boston.] 

Archives Israelites. Paris, 1863. 

Life of Ernest Renan. Mrs. James Darmsteter. 

Life of Ernest Renan. Francis Epinasse. 



438 



INDEX 



Alexandrian Jews, 29, 195 

Andrew, 110, 211. 

Anna, 17. 

Annas. See Hanan. 

Antigonus of Soco, 42, 62, 237. 

Apocalypse of John, 201, 207, 217, 
355. 

Apocalyptic ideas, 96, 202, 206. 

Apocryphal writings, 14, 30, 38, 
164, 183, 184, 204, 334, 336, 338; 
theories, 43, 198-212, 355; gos- 
pels, 366. 

Apollonius of Tyana, 187, 323. 

Aristion, 113. 

Aristotle, 320. 

Asmoneans, 12, 16, 173. 

Augustine, Saint, 57. 



Banou, 147. 

Baptism, 74, 80, 148, 163. 

Bar-Abba, 290. 

Barkokeba, 89. 

Bartimacus, 257. 

Batanea, church at, 113, 132, 133, 

333, 346, 357, 367. 
Bethlehem, 174. 
Boethusim, 158, 249, 250, 261. 
Brahminism, possible influence of, 

73. 
Buddha. See Sakyamuni. 

Cana, 55. 

Capernaum, 98, 118, 218. 

Christianity, 320, 331-333, 374, 

390, 394, 400. 
Church, 217, 215. 
Clement of Rome, 345, 347, 357. 
Crucifixion, 296, 299, 300, 303, 

306. 



Daniel, Book of, 14, 31, 60, 96, 97, 

337. 
David, family of, 173. 
Democracy, 81, 134, 165, 365. See 

Ebionism. 
Disciples, 109-120, 211-215,265, 

266, 275, 281, 301. See under 

individual names and Gospels. 



Ebionism, 131-133, 208, 345, 365, 

367. See Batanea. 
Elijah, 72, 145, 187, 303, 321. 
Essenism, 14, 29, 48, 73, 74, 125, 

126, 161, 190, 389. 
Eusebius, 346. 



Francis of Assisi, 56, 57, 133, 188, 
195, 224, 322, 324, 368, 398. 

Galilee, 20, 48-52, 100, 102-108, 
120-125, 151, 164, 271. 

Gamaliel, 160, 237, 371. 

Gemaras, 317, 371. 

Gnosticism. 350, 354-356, 357, 
358, 393. 

Golgotha, 297. 

Gospels, 367-371, 376, 380-388, 
396; synoptic, 177, 219, 270, 
334, 340-346, 354, 358, 359, 362- 
366, 377, 392; fourth, 115, 149, 
177, 219, 262, 270, 278, 302, 
307, 346-361, 385-388. 

Greek religion, 7, 39, 41; science, 
33, 187, 189, 191; art, 326; con- 
verts to Judaism, 167, 269. 



Hanan, 249, 261, 263, 
284, 312. 



439 



LIFE OF JESUS 



Hanan, son of Hanan, 262. 
Herods, 32, 44, 81, 98, 143, 152, 

157, 176, 232, 313. 
Hillel, 29, 62, 69, 160, 238, 371. 
Hippocrates, 191. 

Immortality, doctrine of, 39, 41, 

42. 
Irenseus, 346, 350, 351. 
Israel, 8 

James, "the brother of the Lord," 
21, 113, 211, 262, 391. 

James, son of Zebedee, 111, 114, 
211, 349. 

Jerusalem, 52, 149-163, 243, 247, 
256, 260, 263, 265, 268, 269. 

Jesus, birth, 18; family, 20-22, 
174, 242, 346, 391; ignorance of 
contemporary history, 32, 44; 
ignorance of science, 33, 179; 
appropriateness of period for 
revolution, 36, 327; relation to 
Judas the Gaulonite, 48 ; sojourn 
in wilderness, 54, 84 ; departures 
from Judaism, 57, 59, 144, 160, 
170, 239, 254, 326, 391 ; personal 
appearance, 61; debt to Jewish 
fathers, 62, 69; relation to Mo- 
saic law, 64, 239, 293; relation 
to John the Baptist, 79, 85; at- 
titude towards political revolu- 
tions, 88-91, 94 ; Utopian dreams, 
92, 133, 207, 224; no idea of civil 
government, 93; love of the poor, 
94, 125, 127, 134; feeling for na- 
ture, 122 ; connection with Essen- 
ism, 126; attraction for women 
and children, 139; failure at Je- 
rusalem, 155; no longer a Jew, 
162, 170, 172; belief in himself as 
Messiah, 172; legends concerning 
him, 174, 184; never called him- 
self an incarnation of God, 177; 
ideas of a church, 211, 215; op- 
position to natural laws, 223- 
228, 328; harshness, 234, 248. 



See Table of Contents; Apocry- 
pha; Essenism; Miracles, etc. 

Jesus Sirach, 62, 69, 237. 

Jewish people, dreams, 12, 39, 72, 
207; dispersion, 12; untheologi- 
cal, 15; high tension, 37, f" 
persecutions of, 14, 31 ; seditions. 
45; love of controversy, 49, 234 
lack of artistic feeling, 49, 96. 
100, 234; manual education, 56 
mental activity, 101; doctrines 
176-178,180,216,217. See Ju- 
daism. 

Joanna, 112, 301. 

John the Baptist. 13, 15, 71-86, 

111, 142-149, 176, 183, 232, 233, 
235, 240. 312. 

John, son of Zebedee, 111, 114, 
211, 275, 276, 282, 322, 346, 
347, 351, 387, 391. 

Joseph of Arimathea, 216, 308. 

Joseph Barsabas, 113. 

Joseph, father of Jesus, 55. 

Josephus, 147, 285, 317, 334, 335. 

Judaism, narrowness of, 13, 49 
proselytes to, 13; nature of, 15 
no doctrine of immortality, 41 
encouraged discussion, 100; spec- 
ulative tendencies of, 181; intol- 
erance of, 294 ; Christianity, sev- 
ered from, 332, 391 . See Jewish 
People; Jesus; Immortality, etc. 

Judas the Gaulonite, 46, 59, 88, 

112, 118, 162, 165, 288. 

Judas of Kerioth (Iscariot), 113, 
126, 211, 267, 272-274, 275, 276, 
313, 351. 

Judas, son of Sariphea, 46. 

Jude, cousin of Jesus, 113. 

Justin, martyr, 345, 347, 357, 358, 
367. 

Justus of Tiberias, 317. 

Kaiapha, 260-264, 270, 312. 

Last Supper, 218-223, 277-279. 
Lazarus, 258, 259, 266, 390. 



440 



INDEX 



Lebbseus. See Thaddeus. 
Levi, son of Alphseus, 17. 

Mahomet, 37, 58, 188, 194, 370, 

376, 383. 
Malachi, 145. 
"Man of Sorrows," 10 
Marcion, 366, 367, 393. 
Marcus Aurelius, 323. 
Mark, 159, 381. See Gospels. 
Martha, 246, 258, 266, 267. 
Mary of Bethany, 246, 258, 266, 

267. 
Mary Cleophas, 113, 301. 
Mary of Magdala, 111, 216, 301, 

310, 311. 
Mary, mother of Jesus, 55, 302. 
Matthew, 112, 117, 122, 211. See 

Gospels. 
Matthias, son of Margaloth, 46, 

162 
Matthias the disciple, 113. 
Messianic hope, 14, 16, 30, 31, 40, 

49, 125, 145, 166, 172-186, 199, 

369. 
Miracles, 186-197, 214, 368, 371- 

373, 380-382, 383, 392, 396- 

405. 
Mishna, 317, 371. 

Nathaniel, 112, 211. 

Nazareth, 22-25, 55, 98, 152, 233. 

Nicodemus, 159, 216, 309. 

Origen, 307. 

Pagans, 130, 163-172, 317. 
Papias, 207, 342, 344, 346, 357, 

358, 376, 392. 
Pascal, 195, 324. 
Passover, 266, 274, 285. 
Paul, 13, 58, 160, 210, 219, 322, 

391, 395. 
Paulus, 395. 
Persia, influence of, 14, 38, 40, 43, 

145, 190. 



Peter, 110, 114-117, 194, 211, 212, 
219, 275, 276, 279, 281, 282, 
283, 342, 356, 391; Epistles of, 
387. 

Pharisees, 42, 119, 150, 157, 164, 
203, 236-242, 249-256, 268, 
271. 

Philip, 112, 211, 212. 

Philo, 29, 100, 181, 317, 334, 360. 

Pilate, 282, 285, 294, 312. 

Pirke Aboth, 64, 122, 212. 

Plato, 57. 

Plotinus of Alexandria, 187, 324, 
367. 

Polycarp, 346. 

Poor, blessedness of the, 94, 122- 
130. See Ebionism. 

Priests, 9, 249, 260-262, 271, 280. 

Prophets, 9, 30, 81, 132, 186, 217. 

Rich, antagonism to, 9, 127, 130- 

142. See Ebionism. 
Roman power, 32, 154, 285, 288, 

306, 316, 327. 

Sabbath, 164. 

Sabeism, 74, 148 

Sacraments. See Last Supper. 

Sadducees, 43, 157, 203, 249, 262. 

Sadok the Pharisee, 47. 

Sakyamuni, 37, 57, 58, 328, 383. 

Salome, 111, 265. 

Samaritans, 130, 163-172, 255. 

Sanhedrim, 43, 280, 283, 284, 308. 

Scribes, 150, 157, 250, 252. 

Semitic race, 7, 8. 

Shammai, 160, 238, 371. 

Sibylline literature, 16, 38. 

Simeon, 17. 

Simon of Cyrene, 294, 298, 299. 

Simon the Leper, 246, 266. 

Simon Magus, 187. 

Simon the Zealot, 112, 211. 

Socrates, 195, 320, 323, 360. 

Spinoza, 323. 

Strauss, 333, 386, 390, 393. 



441 



LIFE OF JESUS 



Susanna, 112. 

Synagogue, 100-102, 186, 314. 



Talmud, 29, 64, 281, 282, 283, 

334, 338. 
Tatian, 350, 366, 367. 
Temple, 151, 153-156, 161, 244, 

256, 262, 272, 283. 
Thaddeus (or Lebbaeus), 112, 211. 
Therapeutse, 29. 
Theresa, Saint, 58, 324. 
Theudas, 89. 



Thomas, 112, 211. 

Thora, origin of, 8, 10; nature of, 
11; devotion to, 14, 16, 30, 118, 
150, 101, 217, 238, 249, 287, 293. 

Tiberias, lake of, 102-108 120. 



Vincent de Paul, 194. 
Virgil, 16. 



Zaccheus, 257. 
Zealots, 48, 112. 



442 



CONTENTS 

Chapter Page 

1 The Place of Jesus in the World's History 5 

2 The Childhood and Youth of Jesus 1 8 

3 The Education of Jesus 26 

4 The Mental Development of Jesus 36 

5 The First Teachings of Jesus 55 

6 John the Baptist 71 

7 The Kingdom of God 84 

8 Jesus of Capernaum 96 

9 The Disciples of Jesus 109 

10 Preaching by the Lake 120 

1 1 The Kingdom of the Poor 130 

12 The Embassy from John in Prison 142 

13 First Attempts on Jerusalem 149 

14 Intercourse with Pagans and Samaritans 163 

15 Legends Concerning the Messiah 172 

16 Miracles 186 

17 Final Conceptions of the Kingdom of God 197 

18 The Institutions of Jesus 211 

19 Growing Enthusiasm and Exaltation 223 

20 Opposition to Jesus 232 

21 The Last Journey of Jesus to Jerusalem 242 

22 Machinations of the Enemies of Jesus 256 

23 The Last Week 265 

24 The Arrest and Trial of Jesus 280 

25 The Death of Jesus 296 

26 Jesus in the Tomb 306 

27 The Fate of the Enemies of Jesus 312 

28 The Essential Nature of the Work of Jesus 317 

443 



LIFE OF JESUS 

Page 

Dedication 330 

Introduction 331 

Preface to the thirteenth edition 379 

Life of the author 406 

Story of the book 412 

Table of dates 415 

Notes on the text 421 

List of authorities 438 

Index 439 

Contents 443 

Advertising matter 445 



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448 



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449 



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Law for Every Day 

The Conspiracy of Pontiac Parkman 

450 



The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table Holmes 

Geoffrey Hamlyn Henry Kingsley 

Doctor Thorne Anthony Trollope 
Eothen Kinglake 

The Conquest of Mexico Prescott 

A First Book on Electricity 
A Sentimental Journey Sterne 

On the Origin of Species Darwin 

The Buccaneers of America Lieut. Burney 

The Poems of Robert Browning 
Pickwick Papers Dickens 

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Two Years Before the Mast Dana 
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Monarchs Retired from Business John Doran 

Chemical History of a Candle Faraday 

Our Village (first series) Mary Mitford 
Confessions of Rousseau 
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The Last Days of Pompeii Lytton 

Noctes Ambrosianae John Wilson 

Some Fruits of Solitude William Penn 
The Microscope P. H. Gosse 

Last of the Mohicans Cooper 

The Comedies of Sheridan 
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Voyage of a Naturalist Darwin 
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Natural History of Selborne Gilbert White 
The Three Musketeers Dumas 

Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green Cuthbert Bede 

Physical Geography of the Sea Lieut. Maury 

A Cyclopedia of Literary Allusions 
Discourses on Painting Sir Joshua Reynolds 

451 



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Homer's Odyssey 
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The Essays of Sainte-Beuve 

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Don Quixote Cervantes 

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Monks of Thelema Besant and Rice 

The Bible in Spain George Borrow 

Legends of the Madonna Mrs. Jameson 

Essays of Elia Charles Lamb 

The Cloister and the Hearth Charles Reade 

Adam Bede George Eliot 

Aurora Leigh Mrs. Browning 

On Compromise John Morley 

Villette Charlotte Bronte 

Marjorie Fleming and Rab and his Friends John 

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452 



NOV 2 1904 



P.T 



